And I Am Also Quite Blind
by Aconitum-Napellus
Summary: In the aftermath of Spock's blinding in Operation Annihilate, Jim tries to help him through his pain.
1. Chapter 1

[A.N. This is not intended to be expanded upon, although I won't say I'm not going to… I just got hit by inspiration during a horrendously stressful day. Must have needed some escapism…]

_And I am also quite blind…_

Those words reverberated through Kirk's mind. How Spock could say it, so prosaic, so factual…

He had not been able to face him – had not been able to keep his own eyes on Spock's blind ones for more than a few minutes. McCoy would take care of him. McCoy would take care of him, and he, the captain, would continue about his duty, continue with the lives of a million people resting in his hands, continue with _everything_ resting on his shoulders.

He sighed, folding his arms across his face, pressing hard to shut out the light. How would they survive this? How would he and Spock continue through this?

After a while he uncovered his eyes again, blinking in the brightness after absolute dark as the thought struck him that Spock could not do this now. He turned his head, his gaze falling on a book left on the shelf by the bed, carefully aligned at ninety degrees to the decorative panel that separated living from sleeping quarters, and with no bookmark because Spock, of course, never forgot his place. Spock had been reading The Odyssey, on Kirk's recommendation.

Guilt and grief stabbed through him. Sam, dead, Aurelan, dead, little Peter still unconscious and riven with pain even in his sleep. And Spock, not dead, no longer in pain, but his sight burned out of his eyes because one of Kirk's thousands of command decisions had finally gone wrong.

The intercom whistled. Jim did not have the energy or inclination to answer it, but he did so anyway. It was his duty, and he would be damned if he did not do his duty.

'Captain,' McCoy said, and Jim could still hear the tightness of anger laced through his voice.

'What is it, Bones?' Kirk asked tiredly. 'You shouldn't need me for another few hours.'

'_I_ don't need you,' McCoy said meaningfully, 'but I can't do any more for Spock in sick bay. There's no need for him to be there, and he'd rather be in familiar surroundings.'

'You don't need my permission to clear him for release, doctor,' Kirk said impatiently.

He did not want to think of Spock any more. Just for a few hours he wanted to block his existence right out of his mind, no matter how cruel that decision seemed. For a few hours he wanted to be a rock, without love or friendship or any of the attending pain.

'I'm not releasing him to sit on his own, blind, goddammit,' McCoy said with a stronger edge of anger. 'I want to know if you're in your quarters so he can stay with you.'

Jim hesitated. He was bone-tired. He was scared. Yes, he had to admit that to himself. He was scared of being with Spock, scared of looking at him like that, less than capable, wrapped in his own personal fear.

'_Jim_,' McCoy said with hissing impatience.

'Oh. Yes, of course, Bones,' he said. How could he refuse? 'Bring him down. I'll be here.'

He lay back on the bed, folding his arm over his eyes again, letting the darkness settle. But the door buzzer jarred into the silence. He jerked upright, almost angry now. It was late, and he had set his privacy status to high. No one should have come to his door without contacting him via intercom first.

'All right, what – ' he began as the door slid open.

Spock stood there, pale faced and rigid, with McCoy beside him.

'Spock,' Kirk stuttered. He was not ready for this… 'Bones, you only just called. You must have been – '

McCoy nodded at the intercom just down the corridor.

'All right,' Jim said, masking over his annoyance in deference to Spock. 'Come in.'

'You don't need me, Jim,' McCoy said meaningfully, touching Spock's arm to nudge him forward. 'I've given Spock all the advice I can to help him. There's nothing else I can do.' He paused a moment, then said, 'I'll get back to my work in sick bay, Captain.'

Kirk stood, silent, as McCoy turned and stalked off down the corridor. The doctor was angry with him. He understood that. He was angry at himself.

'Jim,' Spock said in an uncertain voice, and Kirk's attention snapped back to him. He was taking tiny, tentative steps into the room, one hand angled out a little before him.

As the door closed behind the Vulcan the fear and guilt and anger melted into one and fell away. They could be picked up later. For now, there was simply Spock, standing in the entrance to his quarters, his face pale and his lips tight, his eyes fixed on nothing.

Jim stepped forward and took him in his arms, holding him more tightly than he had in a week, feeling the warmth of his skin through his clothes and the solidity of flesh and muscle and bone beneath his palms. He had been so, so close to losing him to the predation of that abhorrent creature. For a week he had been tight with pain, his skin seeming thinned by it, his bones made sharp by it. He had seemed so fragile he would break. He had never slept, only sat in the chair at the desk, his sinews rigid with control, reading or absorbing information from the computer screen, pressing himself on through the pain as if it were an arduous journey he had to complete.

Now he was soft, somehow collapsed inside. At Jim's touch he leant forward, his hands coming up to enclose Jim's back, tentative at first but then desperate and needful. His head was pressed against Jim's own, he was inhaling deeply, taking in the scent and the presence of his captain as if he had been alone for years.

'Jim,' he said in a faltering tone.

'It's all right,' Kirk murmured, his hands making slow circles over Spock's back, feeling his shoulder blades and his spine and the beat of his heart. One hand moved up to cup the back of Spock's warm neck and his lips touched the side of it, kissing him with desperate firmness.

'No,' Spock said, his voice hollow and quiet. 'No, it is not.'

'Spock…'

Kirk withdrew, stepping away a little, and Spock reached out immediately as if casting for an anchorage in tumultuous seas. Kirk caught his hand and held it hard, and then reached up and stroked the angles of Spock's cheek and jaw, tracing a finger down the sharpness of his bones and trying not to collapse at the sight of those dark and sightless eyes.

'It _will_ be all right,' Kirk promised, coming closer again, landing kisses on his cheeks and lips.

Spock started forward, yearning, finding Kirk's lips again with his own and kissing him with desperation and anger. His hands began an urgent exploration of Jim's face and hair, trailing the sides of his neck and his shoulders. He reached up under the uniform shirt, hands wide and flat and searching, feeling the solidity of Jim's chest, peeling away the clothing and replacing hands with lips and beginning to taste as well as feel him. Warmth and sweat and silken skin and the light sheen of hair came to his tongue. There was a sob in his throat that he would not release. Jim could see it in the hardness in his throat, hear it in the catch in his breath.

'We will continue to be together,' he promised, peeling off Spock's clothes with deft assurance. 'Whatever happens, we will continue to be together. I won't lose you.'

Spock was silent but for his breathing. Jim unwrapped the clothes from his body and threw them to the floor until they both stood naked in the living area of the cabin. Jim held Spock as close as he could for a long, tight moment, feeling his breathing steady and his heart rate settle.

'Come on,' he said in a low voice, taking Spock by the hand and leading him towards the bed. 'Come here and be with me.'

Spock lay down on the wide mattress and Kirk knelt over him, staring at him, marvelling at the beauty of that taut, lean body. He had been so close to losing him. So close… If they had not found a way to kill the creature Spock would have killed himself, eventually. He could not have lived with the pain, made useless to himself and others by the need to control that overwhelmed every other impulse. He had lost weight already through the ravages of pain and sleep deprivation. His body had taken such punishment, and it would only have been a matter of time before his mind suffered the same.

'Oh, Spock, Spock,' Jim murmured, kissing him again, stroking his hands over his skin again, trying to take in all of him in infinite gratitude that he was still here, alive. Those precious hands, the delicate wrists, the fine spidering of hair over chest and stomach. That beautiful aquiline face and sculptured ears and those dark eyes, no matter the lack of light in them now. He could not see, but he was _alive_.

Spock's lips parted in a wordless sigh as Kirk's mouth brushed over the length of his dark, awakening penis and then took it in, firm and secure, stroking his tongue over its length as if he wanted to consume it whole. Oh, the taste of him… How could he have turned away from him in those moments of guilt? His hand was straying over the soft, cool bag between his legs, his fingernails catching softly on the rucks of skin and then moving further back to the tight, dusky opening between his buttocks.

'Jim,' Spock whispered, arching up, his hand moving with certainty even without sight to find the hard and cool glass bottle of oil that stood by the bed.

Jim took it and slicked the fragrant fluid into his hands, warming it gently before letting it slip onto the Vulcan's skin, turning his erection into a glistening column, the beauty of gravity channelling the oil down between his buttocks. Jim rubbed it, slick, into his hands, and then softly pushed one finger into the tight muscular opening. Spock gasped, arched again, raising his knees and opening himself up as Kirk explored further, massaging first one then two fingers deeper into the Vulcan's body. His own erection was hard and eager, his skin alive with the need to feel Spock around him, the shivers moving through his abdomen and focussing in that rod of flesh.

He positioned himself and pushed, slipping with infinite care into the Vulcan's waiting body, letting out a grunt of satisfaction as the tight heat pressed around him. Spock's head was thrown back, his mouth part open and his eyes fluttering closed over the sightless pupils. Jim lowered his mouth to kiss him again, focussing on the dusky nipples and the whirls of hair about them, the dark trail down to the dimple of his navel, stroking his hands over the naked flanks and the parallel curving lines of his ribs. Oh, he was beautiful, and he would not let him go…

He let Spock's legs fall wide and lowered his body over the Vulcan, always connected at that one point, kissing his mouth hungrily as he began to move. He withdrew, pushed again, setting up a rhythm, letting the flatness of his abdomen move back and forth, back and forth over Spock's erection until the Vulcan was letting loose small moans of gratification. He slipped his hand between their bodies, gripping that hard, hot organ in tight fingers, pumping it as he continued to drive himself home into the Vulcan's body until awareness blossomed away and fell like petals about him and he found himself lying over Spock, kissing his lips and cheeks and eyes and sobbing out some kind of incoherent utterance of apology and love into his ear.

'Jim,' Spock murmured, running fingers down the slick sweat that coated the human's back. 'Jim, Jim…'

Finally Kirk straightened up, looking down at the Vulcan, at the mat of fluid that was swirled in his hair, over his stomach and the now flaccid penis lying against his body, flushed with blood. He thought he had never seen him so beautiful.

'Spock,' he murmured, slipping away from him. 'Here, let me get something to clean you up…'

Spock sat, reaching out a hand.

'I am not ill, Jim,' he said, his voice low and rough and still a little breathless. 'Help me.'

Jim could not help but smile at the sight of him, his hair in disarray and his cheeks still faintly olive. He loved the way Spock looked after sex, so soft and somehow _real_, so close to the biological being that sometimes he seemed a million years of evolution from being.

'Come on,' he said, taking his hand, feeling the heat of Spock's skin against his.

Spock stood and followed him, moving tentatively, his forehead furrowed in concentration.

'You're all right,' Kirk muttered, half a question, half an assurance.

Spock nodded silently, following Jim's guidance through the door into the bathroom. Kirk glanced at him as he moved, naked and looking oddly vulnerable with one hand holding Kirk's and the other held out in front of him to feel for anything in his path.

'Shower?' Jim asked, and Spock nodded.

They stepped into the cubicle and Spock stood as Jim adjusted the settings for a water temperature bearable to both him and Spock together. He saw Spock listening, and stiffening suddenly, his lips pressing together.

'What is it?' Jim asked, hesitating with his hand on the dial.

'You should not need to do this for me,' Spock said in a low voice, a tone away from anger.

'I won't,' Jim assured him, stroking his hands down his arms. 'I won't always. You'll be able to work it out. Give yourself some time.'

Spock nodded, lips pursed, a look of apology in his face. Kirk turned the water on, then stroked his fingers over the Vulcan's temples as the spray began to cascade over them both. Spock's mind had been noticeably absent as they made love – always a sign that he was not content. Even now, as Kirk deliberately sent probing thoughts to his lover, there was none of the usual sparking response. There was just a darkness, or an absence of thought.

'Spock, let me in,' he said softly, beginning to smooth soap over the Vulcan's shoulders and chest. 'Don't keep me away from you at a time like this.'

There was a momentary stiffening in the Vulcan's muscles, and he said with unusual haste, 'As you kept me away in the lab, after – ?'

'I'm _sorry_, Spock,' Kirk said with real grief in his voice. 'I'm so sorry. I just – didn't know how to handle it. I do now. I'm human – please forgive my weaknesses.'

Spock reached out with one hand, running the edge of his finger down Jim's cheek, touching his lips and then continuing down, using both hands now with fingers spread out to read the contours of his chest.

'I am Vulcan,' he countered softly. 'Please forgive _my_ weaknesses. I – am scared, Jim…'

'I know,' Jim said, pulling him close, holding him still until the continual flow of the water. 'I can feel it. But I will always be here. I will _always_ be here.'

'_I_ may not always be here,' Spock said hesitantly. 'I am blind.'

'Spock, we don't need to – ' Jim began, but Spock cut him off, his voice becoming strained.

'I cannot continue on the _Enterprise_. I cannot live here merely as your consort. Starfleet does not allow such privileges.'

'Not right now, Spock,' Kirk pressed him, stroking his hands over him through the water that streamed down his back. 'We don't need to talk about this right now. It doesn't matter, anyway. Wherever you go, I will be with you. Now, be quiet and let me clean you off. I want to be allowed the privilege of being close to you. I need it after today.'

Spock bowed his head, becoming still and letting Jim's hands move over him, cleaning his abdomen and then moving down to soap his thighs and buttocks. Jim's hands slipped over his skin with firm caresses, feeling the solidity of his muscles with a strange, sharp feeling of grief inside him. Spock was so lean and fit and active. How could he reconcile that life of ceaseless activity with the veil that had been drawn over his eyes? How would he ever manage?

He straightened up, looking into Spock's face again. He had to stop thinking like that. He wasn't looking at Spock rationally. They both served in a force that saw its fair share of accidents. He had heard of – he had _met_ – fleet veterans before who had lost their sight in various ways, who were moving on to lead perfectly active and useful lives. Some even stayed in the fleet. But Spock… His heart contracted again. He could not look at Spock like that, as one of the unfortunate ones, one of those people who were lauded as brave and special, who were looked at through the glaze of pity by those lucky enough to still be whole and hale.

'Come on,' he said finally, turning the water off as he realised that he had just been standing still in the shower watching Spock's face. 'Let's go eat. You must be starving after this last week.'

Spock followed him again, dripping with water, and Kirk found him his robe and then walked with his arm about his back into his rooms again. Spock sat, damp and enclosed in his towelling robe, in his accustomed chair by the desk while Jim began to arrange a platter of the Vulcan's favourite foods. No doubt Spock would barely taste what he was eating, preoccupied as he was, but Jim saw no reason to stint him.

'There,' he said, putting a plate down before him with the cutlery neatly wrapped in a napkin beside it.

Spock was silent and pale-faced again, but Jim was not surprised. This was how Spock dealt with such things. He pushed them away and did not speak of them and pretended and pretended that he was not hurting inside.

'Spock, _eat_,' Kirk urged him. 'You haven't eaten in days.'

Spock reached cautious fingers out to the plate, finding the cutlery with fumbling movements, his head lowered in concentration and – something else. Embarrassment, Jim realised suddenly. Spock was ashamed of his inability.

'It's fine,' Jim said. 'Just eat. I don't care how you do it. Just get some food inside you.'

'What am I eating?' Spock asked in a taut voice.

Jim described the contents of the plate with great care, and Spock nodded, lifting his fork and toying experimentally with the food. He tried not to watch as Spock began to eat, focussing instead on his own plate, but he could not help see the Vulcan's frustration building. He ate with meticulous care, no doubt with more skill than he believed he was using, and finally laid his cutlery down with faintly trembling hands.

'Now,' Kirk said firmly, clearing the plates away. 'Bed. And that's an order, Commander.'

Spock nodded silently, and stood, beginning to move carefully and without help towards the sleeping area. He removed his robe and hung it on its accustomed hook, and then turned towards Jim's wide bed. Jim watched him, resisting help. Spock lay down, pulling the blanket over himself, and Jim went to turn the heating a little higher as he was accustomed to when Spock slept here. He picked up the copy of Odyssey, fingering it for a moment before asking, 'Would you like me to read your book to you?'

'No, Jim,' Spock said quietly, turning his head towards him. 'Thank you. I think I will just sleep.'

'Okay,' Kirk said, shedding his robe onto a chair and slipping in beside the Vulcan.

He turned onto his side. Spock lay very still on his back, eyes open, and Jim laid a hand on his chest, feeling the slow, steady beat of his heart.

'Are you going to sleep?' he asked after a long time of Spock lying silent.

'Yes, Jim,' Spock said quietly.

Kirk nodded. 'Okay.'

He left his hand on Spock's chest and reached out with the other to dim the lights, and then curled over and closed his eyes. The void of sleep would be a hard and strange place to enter this night, but he _had_ to sleep. He had so, so many things that needed attention in the morning. He had so many things curling and weaving in his mind…

Spock continued to lie still and silent, and Jim knew he was awake, with no real intention of deliberate sleep. Eventually Jim would fall asleep and Spock would lie there still, his mind churning beneath his expressionless face. This was how it would be, until somehow Jim could break through the carapace again, and persuade Spock to move on. Tomorrow was when the dam of emotion would burst. Jim did not look forward to tomorrow.


	2. Chapter 2

It was dark but for the dim blue light from the bedside chrono. Jim could not say what had woken him, but as he came to himself he realised that something was missing – that the warmth of the body beside him was gone.

In an instant he was awake, sitting bolt upright and flicking on the lights. He had plenty of practice at waking for red alerts. This was no different, but for the fact that the red alert was purely personal. He was in his living area before the warmth of the bed had died from his skin, but Spock was not there. He turned, quelling momentary panic and rationalising where Spock was most likely to be. He went through their shared bathroom into Spock's own quarters, flicking the bedroom lights on as he entered.

There, veiled by the perforated screen that separated the bedroom from the still dark living area, was Spock. Spock, apparently doing nothing but sitting very still in his desk chair. It would be easy to believe that he had fallen asleep there.

Jim was not fooled for an instant.

'Spock,' he said quietly, stepping forward into the room.

The movement of Spock's head was almost imperceptible in the dim light.

'You okay?' Jim asked, moving forward into the living area.

Spock hesitated. His hands were steepled in the meditation position, but he did not look as if he were rising from a calming interlude of thought. He was still naked, his hair still tousled with sleep. His cheeks were flushed as if his heart had been racing.

'Do I have to make suppositions?' Jim asked as he rounded the desk. 'Couldn't sleep? A nightmare?'

The slight flinch in Spock's features told him his second guess was correct.

'How long have you been sitting here?' he asked, reaching out to touch the Vulcan's shoulder and feel the relative chill of his skin. 'Long enough to get cold. You didn't turn the cabin temp up.'

'Eleven point three nine minutes,' Spock said abstractedly. 'I couldn't access – ' His hands clenched momentarily, his voice shaking a little. 'I couldn't access the controls,' he said in a carefully steady tone.

Jim crossed to the controls and swiftly turned the heating up until it was a little higher than Spock's normal setting. He stared at the touchpad for a little longer than normal. The thing was digital and almost entirely smooth, relying entirely on sight to operate. It suddenly seemed ridiculous to design something so inaccessible to the blind.

'Come to your bed,' he said softly to Spock. 'You can warm up, and we can lie together, and you can tell me about it.'

Spock obeyed him without protest, moving almost as if he were still in a dream.

'Tell me about it,' Jim said, lying beside him and stroking his fingertips across Spock's face. He closed his own eyes, not wanting to look into Spock's sightless ones. He could feel the turmoil in Spock's mind sparking through his touch.

Spock reached his own hand up to touch Jim's face, his fingers settling by instinct in the meld position.

'May I?' he asked.

'Go ahead,' Jim murmured, preparing himself for the mental joining. He had a feeling that this wasn't going to be easy.

He fell into a maelstrom that he could not control.

_His body is on fire, every joint constricted with stinging pain. He is a ruin being overwhelmed by vines in a high-speed film, each tendril seeking to press between blocks and prise the building apart, each tendril becoming white and gelatinous, becoming the spawn of that hateful creature, being inside _him_, trying to prise his bones apart and ruin him. Infiltrating his lungs like the stab of a thousand sea urchins, infiltrating every soft part of his body, jellyfish drifting in and stinging and then gripping with their twisting, merciless strands and cinching more tightly than a garrotte held by a murderer._

_The pushing, the urging, the knowledge that if he obeys the pain will stop, if he obeys he will be drifting in perfect calm, he will be dropped like a puppet at the end of the show._

_He will not be, of course he will not be. Obedience is illogical. The creature will pressure, pressure, pressure, until all use is wrung from him. Its promises are lies. Everything is a lie. The world outside is starting to seem less real than the pain, but the pain is a lie. The pain is in the mind. A figment, a figment… The stuttering of his thoughts. Control, disobedience, the pressure always on his spine and lungs and in his neck and his hands and down the lengths of his legs. He has to control, he has to…_

_He is a shell. He is a walking shell. He presents a face of calm but his body is burning. His body is being shredded inside by pain. The promise. The promise of relief. The chamber with the light in it. He can not wait, he can not, he can not… The creature knows. The creature understands. He has to kill it before it takes him over. _

_McCoy's voice. _I'll rig up a protective pair of goggles.

_He cannot wait. He cannot wait. He says something to forestall it. His relief as Jim agrees. He has to get in there now, before he is ripped apart by pain. His outside is a lie. His outside is a shell. There is nothing but pain. He can feel the chair against his back, the chair under his hands. The light so bright it pierces the thin tissue of his eyelids. The scream of the creature inside him as it begins to burn. The gradual tailing off of the pain until all that is left is a ghost. All that is left is an afterimage of its tendrils, and the blissful floating _nothing_that is an absence of pain._

_He is dazzled. He opens his eyes. The world is a mist of white, a firework explosion of white in front of him. The door opens and he stands, waiting for the mist to clear. The mist is an afterimage. The mist is his brain reminding him of light. The whiteness begins to fade and he waits, waits. He walks forward and _hits_, hard, into a sharp edge. The mist has faded to black. There is nothing but the sounds of Jim and McCoy and the feel of the desk where it has hit his thigh, and he knows he is blind. _

That was not the dream, Jim knew. That was a memory, an explanation of what Spock had been through to cause such turmoil in his mind.

'Tell me, Spock. Please tell me,' he murmured. He repeated his plea mentally, reaching down into Spock's mind, trying to find the thoughts that Spock wanted to repress.

The dream came in incoherent flashes, sight and blindness intertwining, pain clawing through his body like the drag of barbed wire. Helplessness, reaching out, reaching out through a white haze that faded to black, reaching for Jim and his fingers falling short. Deneva screaming because he had failed, because he was helpless, out of commission, left on high ground with no way to turn. It was too much, too hard to go through again, the emotions raging and out of control. _Too much. Just too much..._

Spock pulled out of the mind link abruptly, his breathing ragged and heavy for a moment as he sought to compose himself.

'Spock,' Jim said softly, reaching his arms around the Vulcan's body and holding him tightly. He could feel Spock's heart beating hard against his ribs.

Spock was silent, his lips bitten hard together, his eyes closed. His eyelashes were wet. Jim stroked his back and tried to press calm into him.

'It's going to be all right,' he said. 'I promise you, it's going to be all right.'

He knew what an empty promise that was. He could do nothing about Spock's eyes. He could do nothing to help him. His future was in all probability off the ship, out of Starfleet. But he kept saying it, murmuring it close to Spock's ear, 'It's going to be all right, Spock.'

He laid his lips on the Vulcan's cheek and held them there for a long moment before he kissed him. He could feel a kind of relaxation seeping into his lover's bones. Spock was tired. He had to be utterly exhausted. He eased his arms out from around him and gently stroked Spock's sharp cheekbone, stroke after stroke. Spock's eyes remained closed, but gradually the lids began to seem more relaxed. After ten minutes he could feel that the Vulcan's heartbeat had softened and his breathing was coming softly and slowly from between his lips.

He extracted himself wearily and walked over to Spock's desk. He sat in the chair there and lowered his head onto his folded arms. What a mess this was. Spock, poor Spock, his career in tatters, his life cruelly shoved off the rails. All those people down on Deneva waiting for help. Everything, _everything_ pushing down on _his _shoulders, all resting on _his_ command. He wanted Spock to be the only thing in his mind right now, but there were a million others who were relying on him.

He turned the computer on, going listlessly over the duty roster, then scanning through all of the various departmental reports on the Deneva crisis. Dr McCoy's was the most harrowing because of the details of Sam's and Aurelan's deaths, the details of Spock's blinding, the in-depth report on the effects of the parasites on the human and Vulcan nervous systems. And little Petey was still there in an artificial coma, waiting for the treatment to be perfected so that he could be freed. When he woke, then what? He was an orphan, all alone in the world. Sure, he had his brothers, both much older, neither of them on Deneva, but what were brothers to the loss of a parent? He recalled losing his own father with such a mixture of pain and regret that he could not stand it. He buried these things. He always buried these things.

Perhaps Petey could go live with his grandmother. Jim didn't know about Aurelan. He thought she was an only child. He wasn't even sure if her parents were living or dead. Would they have any desire to take in their grandchild?

He punched in the codes to access Aurelan's family data. No siblings. Father living, mother dead. The father was eighty seven, and living in the Mars colonies. What kind of life would that be for a young boy? Jim's mom at least still lived on the family farm in Iowa. He remembered his own childhood there with such fondness. Money did not have to be an issue. He was sure that something could be arranged if mom needed someone to stay to help look after a lively little boy. Petey's brothers were not up to the task of looking after a child. One of them served on ships. The other was going through college.

He found himself running through possibilities, over and over. Peter would have to attend school. That was a given. He would need loving care, especially at this time. He would need firm guidance. He would be best on an Earth-like planet, since he had grown up on Deneva, the most Class-M planet Jim had ever been on. Really, truly, he would be best staying on Deneva, where everything was familiar – but then everything would surely be overlaid with memories of his parents, of the tragedy that had struck the entire planet. It would be a long time before Deneva recovered socially and economically. He could see a future of hunger and poverty and riots happening if the Federation did not step in with relief, and even if it did – it surely would – some of those problems would still pervade. There would be too many orphans, too many bereaved parents, too much grief. No, Petey would surely be better off on Earth, on an unbroken planet. Earth was in his blood. His species had evolved to the rhythms of its moon, its tides, to the strength of its sun and the taste of its foods.

He would have to call mom. He still hadn't done that, hadn't broken the news of Sam to her. He would have to do both at the same time.

He checked the chrono on the computer. It was just past five thirty ship time, and ship time was aligned to Earth US Pacific time, where Starfleet was based. It would be seven thirty for mom. He toyed with the controls for a moment, wondering if this was the right time to call, if any time was the right time to call. Mom would surely be up. She had always been an early riser – she said it was farm blood in her veins.

He made the decision very suddenly, before he could back out. He opened up a channel and requested an off-ship call to Earth. It didn't take long before the screen flickered to life and he saw mom's face there on the screen, smiling at him, but looking worried.

'Jim, what's wrong?' she asked him instantly.

Even if he had not looked as if he had barely slept, even if his eyes had not been red rimmed and his hair every which way on his scalp, she would have asked him that, he knew.

'Does something always have to be wrong for me to call you?' he asked, forcing something of a laugh.

'Jim, the last time you called me you were getting over a fever that you said could have killed you. The time before that you were in a neck brace. What's wrong?'

He breathed out very slowly. He didn't know how to do this. It had been a mistake. He had broken the news of death to so many people over the years, but never that of his brother to his mom.

'Mom, I – ' he began.

Her face seemed to lose colour. Even over millions of miles and a computer screen he could feel the rise in her anxiety.

'Jim, what is it?' she asked.

He didn't know how to sugar coat it. He could already see that she was sitting down. He knew there wasn't anyone else there he could ask her to fetch to be with her. There was nothing but breaking the news. It was all he could do.

'Mom, there's been a – disaster on Deneva,' he began.

'Oh my God, Sam,' she said, her voice quick and blank with shock. 'Jim, what's happened to Sam?'

'He and Aurelan are both dead,' Jim said. 'Pete's – he should be fine. He's not great right now, but – '

He broke off because his mother wasn't listening. She had dropped her head to her arms and was crying.

'Mom, is there anyone you can call to be with you?' he asked.

Her shoulders were shaking. When she looked up she wouldn't look directly at the screen.

'I – I guess I can call Doreen,' she said, naming a woman from a nearby farm. Jim knew they had been friends for a long time. Doreen had been the first to come round when dad had died.

'I don't want you to be alone,' he said.

'No, I – I won't be,' she replied. She rubbed her hands over her eyes and drew in a deep breath. 'I'm sorry, Jimmy. I shouldn't cry in front of you.'

He shook his head wordlessly. He wanted to hug her.

'Are _you_ all right, Jim?' she asked, suddenly able to look at him again. 'Have you got – I mean, I know there's Spock, but does he – Can be comfort you?'

Jim laughed suddenly. 'Despite what anyone might say, Vulcans are very good comforters,' he assured her. 'But Spock's – '

His voice choked, and she looked at him sharply.

'Oh God, Jim, Spock's not – '

'He's not dead,' Jim said quickly. 'But he's – oh gosh, it's too complicated and I'm too tired to explain. He's blind, mom. He got infected and we tested out a treatment on him, and he's blind.'

And suddenly he was crying, weeping in a way he had not allowed himself for Sam or Aurelan. He couldn't stop it. His body was shaking itself apart. Oh god, everything was falling apart. His bondmate, his t'hy'la. How could he bear it if they were to be separated?

'Jim. Jimmy...'

He became aware of his mother's voice. He looked up and she was reaching toward the screen.

'You'll bring Petey to Earth, won't you?' she asked. 'To me.'

'Yes,' he said, although he really had no idea if he would be able to manage that. 'I'll bring Petey to Earth.'

'Then I will give you the biggest hug when you come. I love you, Jim.'

'I love you too, mom,' he smiled through a teary face.

'You let me tell the boys. You haven't told them yet, have you?'

'No, I've only told you,' he nodded. 'But it's sure to be out on the news channels soon, so – '

'I'll call them right after I get off the line with you,' she assured him. 'I'll let them know Petey will be all right, that I'll have him.'

'Thank you, mom,' he smiled.

'Now you get some sleep,' she told him. 'It must be early there.'

'I will,' he promised. 'I love you, mom.'

'I love you too, Jimmy.'

He cut the channel and sat in the silence that spread around him, his thoughts whirling. Poor mom. Poor Pete. Poor Spock.

He rubbed his fist over his eyes. They burnt every time he blinked. He needed sleep. There was so much to do in the morning and it was stupid to sit here going over it all now. He went to the cupboard at the side of Spock's room and took out a beautiful angled bottle of blue liquid. He poured himself a shot into a small glass and downed it, feeling it burn into his throat. The drink wasn't alcoholic but he could pretend it was. It sure felt like it was.

He put the bottle away and left the glass on the desk. Then he stole back into Spock's sleeping area. The Vulcan was still lying there peacefully, his breathing slow and steady. Very carefully, wary of disturbing him, he settled himself onto the bed alongside him, staying out of the blanket because it was just so hot in here. He lowered his head onto the pillow, and tried to sleep.


	3. Chapter 3

The alarm came too soon. He slammed his hand onto it before it could wake Spock, but perhaps he needn't have worried. The Vulcan was so deep in sleep he did not even stir. He was utterly exhausted, Jim knew.

He slipped out of bed and made sure that Spock was properly covered by his blanket. He looked around the room briefly, wondering if there were anything he could do to make it easier for Spock when he woke, but he didn't want to move anything or leave anything that Spock would not be able to see. Dammit, he just didn't know what to do for him, how to take care of a blind person.

He went into the bathroom and got into the shower, more to wake himself up than to get clean, since he had showered last night. The water pushed some of the sluggishness away, and he was glad he had done it.

He turned back to the door to Spock's quarters for a moment, then set his shoulders and walked on into his own to get his uniform and eat some breakfast. He hoped that Spock would sleep for a long time. Maybe later he could grab a break and come back down to check on him. In the meantime perhaps he could arrange for a nurse or yeoman to check in on him.

He downed a bowl of museli, thinking grimly how McCoy would approve of that healthy breakfast. He would have preferred bacon and eggs but he was almost certain the doctor had some kind of alarm system that alerted him when his captain chose too many unhealthy meals in a row. He rubbed his hands over his face again as he waited for his coffee to brew. Damn it, it would be nice one morning to just forget about healthy eating, to not bother if he spilt egg yolk down the front of his tunic, to go unwashed and unshaven, to goof off and not appear on the bridge until noon, if at all. He felt like he badly needed a rest, and he wasn't likely to get one any time soon.

He had a little time right now and perhaps his first task of the morning should be to educate himself about Spock's condition. He turned on his terminal and accessed the Fed-web, and started looking for guides on blindness.

Half an hour later he was on the bridge overseeing relief efforts, taking messages and sending them to and from the captains of various ships that were arriving at the planet, trying to get a moment to ascertain what Sam and Aurelan's burial preferences were and if they had a will, parrying McCoy's calls from sick bay about the medical situation down on the planet. They had beamed up some of the weakest patients, mostly children and the elderly, after they had exposed the planet to ultraviolet light and killed the parasites, and sick bay was stretched to its limits while also trying to attend to some of the worst cases down on the planet. Meanwhile, Pete was about to undergo his own treatment, now McCoy judged him strong enough to handle it.

'Mr Sulu, you have the bridge,' he said abruptly. He hadn't intended to be down there, but he knew that he should be. He was all Peter had on the ship and if he were to come round he would want his uncle there.

'Aye, sir,' Sulu said, vacating his console and beckoning for a replacement as Kirk left his chair.

'I'll – I'm not sure when I'll be back up,' Kirk said with uncharacteristic uncertainty. It was getting close to his lunch break and while the ship was busy, it was not a red alert situation and there was no real reason why he could not take the break.

'We can cover it, sir,' Sulu said reassuringly, giving him a smile as he took the con.

Kirk patted a hand onto his shoulder. He was grateful to have such a good team up here.

((O))

The sick bay was almost unbearable. There were people everywhere, all the beds were filled. People were sobbing while nurses and orderlies tried to comfort them. As soon as they caught sight of the captain with the strips of braid on his sleeves it seemed that everyone wanted to catch his attention.

'No, no, not right now,' he had to say again and again. 'No, I want to find McCoy.' He turned to a nurse. 'Do you know where McCoy is? Has he started on Peter Kirk yet?'

'He's just taken him down to the treatment chamber,' the nurse told him with a smile. 'You should be in time.'

Jim turned on his heel and pushed out of the room, turning down towards the labs where the temporary treatment chamber had been set up. It was quieter out here at least, but he felt a horrible sense of being haunted as he went into the lab and through into that small room where Spock had been blinded. There was the table he had walked into, there was the chair he had sat in. McCoy and Nurse Chapel were clustered around the chamber door and seemed to be strapping an unconscious Peter Kirk into the chair.

'Bones,' Kirk called out.

McCoy looked over his shoulder. 'Oh, Jim, just in time. It's good you're here.'

'You're sure it's safe now?'

McCoy laughed briefly. 'Jim, we've treated over a million people simultaneously on the planet last night, and it was like a miracle cure. People are getting back on their feet, starting to pull things back together. I'm not saying it's not a mess down there, but yes, the treatment's safe.' The doctor looked over at the nurse, who was closing the door on the chamber. 'All set, Christine?'

'All set,' she nodded. She looked briefly at Kirk and there was pain in her eyes as she asked quietly, 'How is Mr Spock, Captain?'

'He's – doing all right,' Kirk said. He wasn't sure what else to say.

'Okay, this is lovely, but that boy in there needs his treatment,' McCoy said brusquely, handing out goggles.

'I thought the light was safe now, Bones?' Kirk asked curiously as he took them. A dark feeling rose in him at the thought of the last time he had worn these.

'It is, but better safe than sorry.'

Kirk met Christine Chapel's eyes without meaning to, and a spear of sadness seemed to pass between them. He raised the goggles to his eyes, and then McCoy threw the switch to turn on the light.

'All right, that should be enough,' he said after about twenty seconds. Together he and Chapel opened the door and took the unconscious form of Peter Kirk out of the chamber. He looked so very small in that chair and in McCoy's arms.

'Scans show the creature is completely gone,' Chapel confirmed, holding out a tricorder. 'He just needs to recover now.'

'Hear that, Jim?' McCoy asked with a bright smile. All the tension in the room was suddenly gone. 'Let's get him back to his room.'

Jim hadn't asked if Petey had a separate room because he was the Captain's nephew, or just because of the seriousness of his condition. He suspected the latter. Bones wasn't the type to pander to rank. He watched as Peter was laid on the gurney and followed him back to his room.

'How soon will he come around, Bones?' he asked as the doctor settled him in bed.

McCoy looked up at the monitors above the bed, and then double checked with his own scanner.

'I'd rather keep him out for a while longer yet. He's still very weak. I want to give him intravenous nutrition for a while to build him up. So – you go and check on Spock, why don't you? Oh, and tell him I'm going to want to see him later to check on – well, just to check on things.'

Jim smiled with sudden relief at the respite. He didn't know how to deal with Peter yet, how to talk to him about his parents and tell him he would probably never go home.

'Okay, Bones,' he said quietly. 'Just – tell me as soon as you're ready to bring him round, won't you?'

'I will,' the doctor promised. 'Now, go to Spock.'

((O))

He opened the door cautiously, half wondering if Spock were still asleep. He had called down to his cabin once during the morning but got no answer. He had decided against sending a nurse or yeoman down, certain that Spock would see that as an inexcusable intrusion of privacy and knowing that if he needed help, he would surely call for it.

The lights were off as he entered, and he palmed them on.

'Spock?' he asked quietly, looking around.

He was there in his sleeping area, wearing a dark blue robe, sitting on the edge of the bed in front of his meditation statue. The grizzled old bear creature sat in stately immobility, the flame in its bowl burning gently.

'Spock, can I disturb you?' Jim asked. He generally left Spock alone during meditation.

Spock blinked and turned, and for a moment his eyes were on Jim's and it was as if he could see. Jim's heart jumped. Then his head turned a little further, and it was evident that nothing had changed.

'Jim,' he said quietly. He cocked his head a little to one side, then said, 'I am not sure of the time.'

'Just gone noon,' Jim told him. 'Have you eaten anything today?'

Spock shook his head, and Kirk sighed.

'I have not been hungry,' Spock said at the small sound. 'I did not wake up until about an hour ago.'

Jim smiled and came across the room to him. It was odd to hear Spock speaking with such uncertainty about time. Usually he was accurate to within a second, but it seemed that the strain of the past week had thrown him off.

'Why don't you come and have something to eat now?' Jim asked him.

Spock breathed out slowly, and did not answer. Jim sat down companionably close to him on the edge of the bed, bumping his shoulder against Spock's.

'Come on, Spock,' he said. 'You need to eat. You'll have Bones on your back if you don't.'

'Jim, I have been thinking,' Spock said seriously.

'You're always thinking. That doesn't mean you shouldn't eat.'

'I have been thinking about my future,' Spock clarified. 'I wish to resign my commission.'

It felt like a blow. Jim didn't know what to say. He reached out and placed a hand over Spock's, and Spock curled his fingers around it.

'Spock, you don't need to do that,' he said.

'I have no place in Starfleet,' Spock continued.

'_Listen_, Spock,' Jim insisted. 'It's too soon to know anything about your eyes and what you might be able to do, but one thing's certain – the Fleet will look after you. They have a duty to look after you. For god's sake don't throw that away. Don't – _please _don't – do anything now that you might regret later.'

Spock sighed. Jim leant sideways to rest his head against Spock's sleek hair.

'Promise me you won't do anything like that, Spock,' he said. 'It's not like you to act rashly.'

Spock flinched a little at that, as if the accusation of rashness had hit home. After a moment he nodded. 'I promise.'

'Good. Now, will you eat something?'

Spock shook his head. 'I am not hungry,' he said.

'Come on,' Jim insisted, putting a hand under his elbow and making him stand up. He touched the extinguisher on the meditation flame and a slight scent of smoke rose into the air. 'Shall I find you some clothes?'

Spock brushed a hand down the front of his robe.

'Yes, thank you,' he said.

Jim didn't ask if he were dressed in the robe out of preference or because of some perceived inability. He just went to the Vulcan's drawers and pulled out underwear and a uniform, certain that was what he would prefer to wear.

'Do you need help, Spock?' he asked as he passed the clothes to him.

'I don't believe so,' Spock replied.

'Then I'll fix you something to eat,' he said.

In a few minutes Spock was seated at his desk with a plate of food in front of him. As he had last night, Jim had picked out some of his favourites to try to tempt him. He could tell that the Vulcan had little interest in what was on the plate, but he was eating to please Jim.

'Pete's been treated now,' Jim said conversationally.

'That is good,' Spock nodded. He speared a cube of vegetable on his fork and brought it to his mouth. After a moment he asked, 'How is the boy?'

'Bones is keeping him under for a while yet, but he's doing well. He's free from that pain at last, thank god.'

'Good,' Spock nodded.

After he had eaten a little more he leant back in his chair and sighed.

'Had enough?' Jim asked.

Spock was silent for a moment before he replied distractedly, 'Yes. Yes, I have had enough.'

Jim sat just looking at him for a while. The air felt thick with tension. He felt as if there were a thousand words that needed to be said but neither he nor Spock could manage to say them.

'I spoke to mom last night,' he said after a while. 'Told her about Sam and Aurelan. She wants to take Pete.'

Spock frowned a little, and then abruptly he pushed his plate aside and got to his feet.

'Jim, do you have more time to spare?' he asked.

Jim did not even look at the chrono. 'Of course, Spock,' he said. 'What do you want?'

Spock shook his head. 'I confess I find myself – I am rather at a loss, Jim. I have been cloistered in quarters since yesterday.'

'You want to get out? Go for a walk?'

'Perhaps,' he nodded. 'Although I do confess it feels strange to have to ask for your assistance.'

'It's fine, Spock,' Jim assured him. 'I've been doing a little reading, Spock, just about little things, techniques.'

'Techniques for the blind?' Spock asked, turning his head toward Jim with a quizzical look. The eyebrow raising above the empty eye cut him as it always did.

'Yes, Spock,' he said rather awkwardly. 'If you just take my arm – no, like that,' he said, repositioning the Vulcan's hand. 'Just above the elbow. That way you can follow my guidance more easily. Shall we walk down to sick bay? Bones said he wanted to see you.'

'That would be acceptable,' Spock said.

If he felt awkward about venturing out into the corridors he did not say so. He curled his hand around Jim's arm and followed him to the door. Jim pressed his other hand over Spock's fingers, then walked him out into the corridor.

They walked in silence for a little while, and then Spock said in a low, serious voice, 'Jim, you must allow me to consider my future.'

'I do,' Jim said quickly. 'I do, I just don't want you making any sudden decisions. Resigning your commission – that's unnecessary and it's sudden. It's far, far too soon, Spock. There's no need at all for you to leave the Fleet. Have you – ' He hesitated, looked over his shoulder to be sure they were alone, then continued, 'Spock, have you considered how that might affect me? I'm your bond mate for god's sake.'

'Very many bonded couples spend a great deal of time apart, Jim,' Spock pointed out in a voice which although level, sounded rather strained.

'Maybe they do,' Jim nodded, feeling his temper rising, growing more out of control as he spoke, 'but are any of them bonds between a Vulcan and a human, Spock? You may be able to cut me out of your thoughts on a whim, but it's not something I can do or something I want to do.'

His arm jerked backwards as Spock stopped in his tracks. He could feel through their bond that his words had hurt the Vulcan even behind his shields.

'Jim,' Spock said, and there was a desperate tone to his voice.

Spock was still holding onto his arm. Jim took a step backwards so that they were level again. They were still alone in the corridor.

'Spock, I'm sorry,' he said. 'This has been a strain on me too. I – ' He looked around and saw that they were close to a briefing room. 'Come with me, Spock,' he said, turning toward the room and taking him inside. He engaged the privacy lock. 'Sit down, Spock,' he said, then experienced a moment of awkwardness as he tried to work out how to transfer the Vulcan to a chair. 'Look, the info said like this,' he continued, putting the hand of his guiding arm on the back of the chair. 'Slide your hand down my arm to the chair. Okay?'

'Thank you, Jim,' Spock replied quietly, his fingers moving down Jim's arm with infinite care and then finding the seat..

Jim did not feel in the least like sitting down, but he pulled a chair up and set it opposite Spock's so they were almost knee to knee.

'I need you to understand, Spock, that where you go, I go too,' he said seriously. 'This has had a huge impact on you, of course it has, but – '

'I do not discount the impact on you, Jim,' Spock said, reaching out his hand. Jim took it. 'The death of your brother and his wife. When I said I understood, I meant it. I _do_ understand grief, Jim, even if I choose to shield it from public view. I also understand that this – this disability – must necessarily impact on you. But I _cannot_ ask you to give up your career for me.'

'Spock, I don't think you _do_ understand,' Kirk pressed, feeling very close to an emotional breakdown. He took Spock's other hand too, held them both tight. His hands felt so warm, so strong in his. He had loved Spock's hands for a long time. His hands, his wrists, the delicate points of his ears, the sharpness of his cheekbones. 'I can't be without you, Spock. I can't be millions of miles away from you and leave you alone in this, as much as for myself as for you. Either we both stay on this ship, or neither of us do. Can you understand that?'

Spock sighed. He suddenly looked very tired, almost as if he himself were about to cry.

'Jim, I cannot stand for this to destroy _your_ life too,' he said, and that hit Jim like a blow. This was the first time that Spock had, albeit obliquely, admitted the magnitude of the impact of his blindness on him.

'You know, we can't both break down,' Jim said, his voice suddenly choked. He was laughing a little but only to stop himself from crying. 'Spock, we have to work out what to do. We have to spend time and thought on this. I don't want to lose my command. I don't think you want to lose your place in the Fleet either. There _must_ be a way...'

Spock took in a deep breath, and by the way it shuddered a little Jim knew that he too was close to the edge emotionally. He had been under such strain for so long.

'The first thing we _must_ do is go to see the good doctor,' Spock said. 'And you must fulfil the _Enterprise_'s role in this crisis. Whatever may happen, you are the captain at this moment, and you have your duty.'

'Yes,' Jim said, trying not to bend under the dull weight of that word. 'Yes, I have my duty. I guess I'd better get you down to sickbay, then carry on with that duty, eh?'

Spock nodded solemnly, but he pressed his fingers over Jim's and a warm sensation of love spread into his mind. The one thought that revolved in his head as he stood and let Spock take his arm was that they were not going to be torn apart by this. Whatever happened, he was not going to leave Spock's side.


	4. Chapter 4

Spock sat in Dr McCoy's office with his fingers curled around a cool tumbler of liquor. McCoy had given it to him after the examination, and he had not had the energy to refuse. Perhaps sometimes, after all, there was a place for alcohol.

'I'm so sorry, Spock,' the doctor was saying.

'Yes, I know, Doctor. You have already told me that,' he nodded. 'In fact, I think you have expressed variations on the same theme sixteen times since your examination.'

McCoy was silent for a beat, but Spock could feel the thickness of his regret and sorrow. McCoy hated to not be able to comfort or offer a cure, and in Spock's case he was able to do neither.

'Would you like me to call Jim down?'

Spock took a sip of his drink. If he had known exactly where the desk was he would have set the glass down, but he did not want to be seen groping around for it. He wished he could ask for Jim to come to him, but he knew that Jim was desperately busy, and he needed to be able to manage alone. It was likely he would need to manage alone a lot in the foreseeable future.

'No, Doctor, I do not want you to call Jim,' he said.

The doctor had examined his eyes and confirmed what he already suspected. There was no change in the damage. No healing had occurred. No detection of light at all was passing to his brain through his optic nerves. There was nothing the doctor could do. He had suspected as much before submitting to the examination, but the confirmation of the fact was no less devastating for that.

'I could do with checking the wound on your back,' McCoy said rather hesitantly. 'I forgot about that while I was looking at your eyes.'

'Of course,' Spock said. Normally he would have protested that there was no need, but he found he did not feel like fighting the doctor. 'Must I disrobe?'

'It's okay, just lean forward a little and I can lift your tops up, if that's all right,' McCoy assured him, so Spock acquiesced as the doctor probed the narrow wound near the top of his back where the creature had punctured the skin and the doctor had subsequently operated.

'Bit tender?' the doctor asked as Spock flinched. 'It's doing well, though. The healing's almost complete.'

'Are you finished, Doctor?' Spock asked as the doctor stepped away.

'Yes, I'm finished,' McCoy said.

Spock realised that the doctor sounded tired too. He had been so absorbed in his own situation that he had not picked up on those small cues.

'You are in need of rest, Doctor,' he said in a level voice.

'Me?' McCoy asked, in a tone of feigned surprise. 'No, no, I'm all right, Spock. Really.'

Spock cocked his ear toward the door. He could hear the noise of the full ward outside.

'You have an unusually large burden of patients at the current time,' he said.

'Well, that's true, Spock, but M'Benga's on duty out there at the moment. I'm due off shift now. I wouldn't be drinking this if I weren't.'

'No, of course,' Spock murmured. He had lost track of the time again. He felt so very out of touch. 'Perhaps I should not be drinking either in my current condition.'

McCoy laughed. 'Spock, giving you alcohol is like giving a teaspoon of rum to a rhino. I don't think you need to worry.'

Spock did not reply. He sat holding his drink, rubbing his fingertip over the smooth glass. He could feel where the liquid was by the change in temperature. He could also feel its effect in his body. McCoy was not entirely correct. It was not so much that alcohol did not affect him, but that he was able to control his responses.

'Come on, Spock, give,' McCoy said suddenly.

'I beg your pardon, Doctor?'

'If you were human I'd have you in counselling by now. You've experienced a sudden and traumatic disability. Talk to me.'

Spock frowned a little.

'That is not the Vulcan way, Doctor.'

'Well, I'm human, and you're half. Humour me.'

Spock pressed his hands a little harder around the glass, and then stopped, wary of breaking the fragile container. 'There is nothing I wish to talk about at the present time,' he said.

'What are you going to do?' the doctor pressed him. 'Do you have any ideas about how to move on? Do you want me to find some literature – '

'I cannot read,' Spock replied in a very level voice, but the frustration at the fact gnawed inside him.

McCoy gave an exasperated sigh. 'I can set the computer to text-to-voice for you, Spock. There are ways – '

'And I suspect I shall be forced to learn a very many of them, very quickly,' Spock interrupted. There it was now, impatience forcing its way into his voice. The alcohol was having an effect – or at least _something_ was eroding his ability to control.

'Well, a willingness to adapt is a positive step, at least,' McCoy murmured.

'Is there any other option?' Spock asked.

'Some people wouldn't blame you for holing up in your quarters and letting the world go by.'

'That is not in my nature,' Spock said, although there was a certain portion of him that wished to do just that. A certain portion of him wanted to just be left alone, wanted the doctor to stop talking, needling him with words, wanted to walk out of here and find peace and solitude. There, of course, was the irony. No matter how much he wanted peace and solitude he would have to ask for help to reach a place where he could gain it.

'I had considered resigning my commission,' he said, and held up his hand as McCoy began the splutters of a protest. 'Do not concern yourself, Doctor. I am not going to do that. Jim – persuaded me that it would be an error.'

'You're damn right it'd be an error,' the doctor muttered. 'For god's sake, Spock, when you went into that chamber I told Jim you were the best first officer in the fleet. I meant that. You're the best goddamn officer this ship has ever had.'

'Why, thank you, Doctor,' Spock said, raising an eyebrow, feeling a small flush of something in his chest that might have been pleasant surprise. Perhaps the alcohol really was working on him. 'I had no idea you felt that way.'

'Well, I wouldn't have said it to your face,' McCoy murmured. Spock could hear him taking another sip of his drink. 'Hold still, Spock, let me give you a refill,' he interrupted himself. Spock held the glass still without protest, and the bottle clinked against it as liquid poured. 'There. Not too full. But I meant it, Spock. I really did. Blind or not, you've got a hell of a lot to give.'

'But how am I to give it, in my current condition?' Spock asked pensively.

'Techniques, adaptations, training,' McCoy said.

Spock imagined he was waving a hand in the air. It was so very odd sitting here in the dark while McCoy was obviously functioning in full light. He was trying to glean as much as he could from the small sounds that his Vulcan ears picked up. That soft noise was probably the fabric of the doctor's top and the sound of his hand moving in the air.

'And how am I to access such training?'

The doctor sighed. 'There are a few places on Earth, one on Vulcan, various rehabilitation facilities scattered around other planets in the quadrant.'

'All would mean leaving the ship. I would say that leaving the ship is a given, at least temporarily, probably permanently. I do not know that there has ever been a blind officer on a ship of the line.'

There was a long silence, then the doctor said, 'Yes, Spock, I think you're right. Much as I hate to say it, you _will_ have to leave the ship for a while.'

'And – Jim,' Spock said.

He spoke about his relationship with Jim to very few people. They did not show signs of it in public, especially on the ship. But their relationship status was, he knew, a subject of continuing gossip and most people were aware of it. McCoy was one of the privileged few who knew about it because Spock and Kirk had confided in him.

'It'll kill him,' McCoy said unthinkingly.

'Factually incorrect,' Spock said, although the doctor's words struck home harder than he would have liked. 'But it is likely to have a significant emotional impact.'

'Significant emotional impact be damned. It'll crush him, Spock. He's reeling. He's absolutely reeling from what's happened. What with losing Edith Keeler the way he did, for a start – '

Spock flinched involuntarily at the mention of Edith's name. He knew how very hard that had been on Jim. It had been those weeks in close quarters with Jim that had lead him to realise exactly how he felt about his captain, and the aftermath of Edith's death which had brought them together.

' – and now his brother and his sister-in-law dead, his nephew orphaned, and your blindness on top of that,' the doctor continued, apparently unconscious of Spock's moment of discomfort.

'I regret being the cause of such pain,' Spock said rather tightly.

'Hell, you know I don't mean it like that, Spock – but you know, you _must_ know, that it's cutting him up.'

'Yes, I do know that, Doctor,' Spock admitted softly. 'I know that he will not admit that grief to me in its entirety. I know he is trying to hold it in for my sake. Perhaps you could induce him to confide in you?'

'Maybe,' McCoy say with a degree of moroseness in his voice. 'Maybe I can. But, you know, I think it would be best between you two, for you to work out your problems together.'

'He is afraid of burdening me.'

'And you're afraid of burdening him. You're two for two. You know a problem shared is a problem halved.'

'Trite human phrases are not always accurate.'

'Well, maybe I don't have anything else to give,' McCoy sighed. 'You know, I'm all done with you here, professionally, at least. Do you want me to walk with you back to your quarters, or do you want to grab a bite of lunch?'

Spock felt a profound sense of gratitude that the doctor had not said, _take you back_. He was, in fact, hungry now, but he was not entirely certain that he wanted to eat in a rec room in front of the crew. McCoy seemed to sense his uncertainty.

'Or I could go rout something out and bring it up here,' he continued. 'How about that, Spock?'

'That would be acceptable,' Spock nodded.

'Well, that's a date,' the doctor said, getting up and coming around his desk. He slapped Spock on the shoulder affectionately. 'I'll be back in a little while.'

'Thank you, Doctor,' Spock nodded.

Once he was alone in the office he permitted himself the freedom to explore. He reached out with his left hand and felt about in the direction of where he believed the desk to be. After a moment, he found it. He moved his hand over the surface to check that it was clear, and then put down his half-finished drink. Then he stood up.

For a moment he felt paralysed. He had sat in sickbay and sat in Jim's room. In his own quarters and bathroom he had made some explorations, reasonably confident in his knowledge of the space around him. But elsewhere there had always been a hand at his elbow or Jim watching over him, and here there was no one.

He closed his eyes, trying to see if he could somehow sense the space around him. He was reasonably sure that echoes could be utilised in some way, with his sensitive hearing. But perhaps it was too soon, perhaps he was not yet used enough to this. There was too much noise filtering through from the ward outside for him to focus on the small sounds in here.

He gave up on trying to listen to echoes and moved round the desk carefully, hand by hand around the edge as if he were a boat circumnavigating an island. Was this what McCoy's office had become to him? A strange and unknown sea? He remembered the shelves with various medical curiosities on them, the desk, the chairs, the various panels on the wall. But everything felt so different in the dark.

He stumbled into something and reached out to find McCoy's chair, still warm from his sitting in it. He took the doctor's place and reached out to the computer, finding its solid contours beneath his fingertips. He felt to the side and switched it on. Talking to the doctor had given him the determination to do something about his situation.

'Computer,' he said.

The monotone voice was no different to normal, even though everything felt so different now. 'Working.'

'How many visually impaired persons currently employed by Starfleet?'

'Nine thousand, three hundred, seventy two,' the computer said without hesitation.

'How many of those employed in active duty on Constitution class starships?'

'Two hundred five.'

'Are there any first officers who are visually impaired?'

'Negative.'

Spock nodded slowly, considering those statistics. He had already been almost certain that there were no visually impaired first officers on Constitution class ships. He tended to keep a current knowledge of his counterparts on other ships.

'How many employed in science divisions of those ships?' he asked.

'One hundred thirty two.'

Spock raised an eyebrow at that information. 'A high proportion. Who is the highest ranked visually impaired officer currently working on a starship?'

'Lieutenant Commander Ellen Sandshaw, Chief Science Officer, USS _Aberdeen_.'

'What is the medical cause and extent of her visual impairment?'

'That information is restricted to authorised medical personnel,' the computer said flatly.

Spock sighed softly. It was to be expected that he couldn't simply access any crew member's medical records, especially from another ship. 'Computer, place a call to Lieutenant Commander Ellen Sandshaw, Chief Science Officer, USS _Aberdeen_, from this transmitter,' he said.

'Working. Connection acquired.'

There was a beat of silence, then a short moment of static, and a woman's voice said, 'Commander Spock. This is an honour. How can I help?'

'I am seeking advice on the feasibility of a blind person working as part of the science team on a starship,' Spock said bluntly. 'I believe you are blind, Ms Sandshaw.'

'Yes, I am,' she said smoothly. 'But perhaps you've come to the wrong place, Commander. I'm hardly going to recommend against employing someone who's visually impaired.'

'I did not seek your recommendation,' Spock said, shaking his head. 'I seek your insight. May I ask how much sight you have?'

'None that's very useful, sir. Just a small amount of light and colour perception at the edges of the field. I contracted Reeve's Disease about – oh – fifteen years ago.'

'I see,' Spock nodded. 'And you were already working as a science officer?'

'Not as the chief, sir. I was a lab technician. I kinda worked my way up.'

'Most admirable,' Spock told her. 'May I ask, Ms Sandshaw, how you manage to carry out your duties without sight? Do you have any special assistance? Any devices?'

'Well, I do have quite a few devices – mostly things the ship's engineer's cooked up for me. Everything on the ship's labelled up with Braille, my tricorder has an audio function. And I have an on-call assistant – a science technician who also helps me with any problems I have, accompanies me on away missions. Oh, and I have Moses.'

'Another assistant?'

'Of the furry kind, Mr Spock. Moses is my guide dog.'

'I did not realise a guide dog would be allowed on an active starship,' Spock mused.

'Well, he was on trial at first – hell, we both were, when I came back from my rehabilitation, but my efficiency rose drastically as soon as I got him, as did my safety on away missions, so they couldn't really argue. Guide dogs are exceptionally well trained dogs, Commander.'

'Ms Sandshaw, if I asked for a recommendation from you to allow a blind person to serve as science officer of the _Enterprise_, would you give it?' Spock asked abruptly.

There was a short pause, then the woman said in confusion, 'Sir, I thought _you_ were science officer on the _Enterprise_?'

'That is correct,' Spock nodded.

'Then, I don't understand...'

'I am blind,' Spock explained. It felt very strange to say those words. 'I lost my sight a day ago, as the result of treatment for another – ailment. All indications are that the condition is permanent.'

There was that pause again, then she said, 'I'm sorry, Commander. I – know what it's like to deal with that. I can only imagine what it must be like for it to happen suddenly. It _was_ sudden?'

'Very,' Spock nodded. He felt more and more reluctant to discuss the emotional impact with a stranger. 'The recommendation, Ms Sandshaw?'

'Yes, of course,' she said quickly. 'I'd recommend for a human. I'd recommend even more highly for a Vulcan, and particularly for you. You are – very admired in most science divisions, Commander.'

'Thank you,' Spock nodded, her compliment washing past him. What mattered was that Starfleet had taken the precedent of employing a blind science officer, and that she was willing to endorse his own position. 'That is all I needed to know. Spock out.'

He barely waited for her reply before cutting the channel. As he did he heard the door swish open and caught the scent of food as McCoy bustled back into the room.

'I'm out of the room for five minutes and you take over my desk!' the doctor grumbled good-naturedly as he came in.

'You were gone for approximately fifteen minutes, and I made use of your terminal in your absence,' Spock corrected him. 'You were asking me what I was going to do about my situation. I made preliminary enquiries into the feasibility of my remaining on the ship.'

'And?' the doctor asked eagerly, putting a tray down on the desk with a clink of crockery.

'And there is quite a number of visually impaired officers in Starfleet. One of them is science officer of a Constitution class vessel.'

'Well, that's great, Spock!' the doctor exclaimed. 'There's a precedent. That's important.'

'I am inclined to agree,' Spock nodded. 'However, indications are I would still have to leave the ship for rehabilitation training.'

'Temporarily for training is a hell of a lot better than permanently,' McCoy pointed out.

'Indeed,' Spock said. This sudden change in his life was traumatic enough as it was, without completely relinquishing his home and his future.

'I'll tell you what, Spock – I'll start looking into rehabilitation opportunities while we eat. Do you have a preference between Vulcan and Earth, or a burning desire to go elsewhere?'

'I would prefer Earth,' Spock said.

He felt McCoy's ripple of surprise. He did not wish to explain exactly why he preferred to go to Earth. He could not quite pin down the reason himself. Perhaps a slight sense of nostalgia since he had trained there for Starfleet, a fondness for his mother's home planet, a disinclination to plunge himself back into the rigidity of Vulcan education. If pressed he would say that it would be better to learn Earth standard techniques, since Starfleet was predominantly a human organisation, but somewhere deep down there was a hope that at least on Earth it would be easier for Jim to be with him, at least for a short time or for visits. He did not want to be alone.


	5. Chapter 5

Jim slumped down into his desk chair in utter exhaustion. He felt as if he had not stopped moving all day. When he had not been on duty on the bridge he had either been visiting other departments on the ship or he had been with Spock, and being with Spock right now made him feel as if something were tearing inside him. He wanted so badly to _be_ with him, to lie with him, be intimate with him, share with him, but he was afraid of the pain that he knew was lying at such a shallow depth beneath the Vulcan's defences. No matter how brave a face Spock tried to put on it Jim knew that he was scared, frustrated, despairing, and sometimes furious at this sudden and catastrophic change in his life.

He closed his eyes and let his head fall back, wishing he had a more comfortable chair in the room. Spock had those warm, carved wooden chairs, but what he wanted right now was an armchair. He didn't want to flake out on the bed. He just wanted to sit in something enveloping and softly upholstered, and imagine someone perhaps bringing him coffee or alcohol, perhaps rubbing his shoulders. He wanted to fall asleep.

He felt as if he had unexpectedly lurched off the edge of a platform. His stomach dropped and grief welled in. Sam had looked as if he were sleeping when he had first seen him on the floor of his lab on Deneva. These things had been haunting him all day, these odd and random associations. Looking at food had made him wonder what Sam's last meal had been. Pulling on his boots had made him think of the worn look of the soles of his brother's shoes. Every time a thought like that came to him it was like falling from a cliff, that momentary panic, the jolt and then the sadness crowding in. Why had he left it so long since last calling his brother? It had been almost a year. How did time go by so fast? Had there really never been enough time just to open a comm line and talk?

He wondered when Spock had last talked to his parents, and felt the bottom drop from his stomach again. Oh, Spock... He couldn't bear to think of his eyes, to think of all that he had lost. He had felt so certain of the future since discovering the joy of a relationship with Spock. They served together, and would continue to serve together, two men at the top of the chain of command on this beautiful ship. There was nothing to dent the perfection. But now everything had been thrown into turmoil. He could not bear to think of Spock going away, but he couldn't see how he could stay.

Guilt rose in him in waves. He should go through to Spock's cabin now. He was sure he was in there. He should be there with him, asking him about his day, seeing if he needed anything. But he was tired. He was so goddamn tired. He wanted to throw off responsibility just for a few minutes, an hour.

He laid his arms on the desk and rested his head down onto them. He was so very tired. He just wanted a few minutes, and then he would go to find Spock...

His eyes drifted closed. It was warm and he was so tired...

...and then he became aware of fingers touching him, stroking him with infinite gentleness, moving lightly over his hair, about the contours of his ear, touching his forehead, and then moving down to his shoulders. He could feel Spock's presence like a warm blanket. He didn't open his eyes, but murmured, 'God, that's good,' as Spock's fingers kneaded into the tight muscles of his shoulders.

'I needn't ask if it has been a long day,' Spock said.

His voice was warm, almost a purr. Jim opened his eyes and lifted his head up and Spock's arms slipped about his neck. Suddenly he recalled the exact situation, and jumped properly into wakefulness as he remembered this was not just any day after a hard shift, that Spock's fingers had moved so carefully over him because he could not see, that he must have come through here feeling his way because he could not see and Jim had not come to him.

'Oh, god, Spock, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to fall asleep,' he began.

'It does not matter,' Spock said, his arms still and heavy, folded across Jim's chest from behind.

'It does. It does matter, Spock. You went for your examination. I haven't even asked you how it went.'

Spock sighed. After a moment of silence he said, 'Dr McCoy did not have good news.'

'Oh,' Jim said, although he had expected that even as he had hoped fervently for the opposite. 'There's nothing – '

'As splendid as are the benefits of modern medicine, we still cannot perform transplants with parts of the brain, and the optic nerves are part of the brain,' Spock said. 'They are too damaged for artificial regeneration. There is a latent hope of healing, but there are no signs of the nerves healing. Vulcans are possessed of an inner eyelid which tends to protect against extreme brightness, but in this case the intensity of the light was apparently too great even for that.'

His arms tightened a little around Jim's chest. Jim lifted his hands to press them over Spock's, and then stood to take him in his arms.

'I'm sorry, Spock,' he said. 'I'm so, so sorry.'

'What is, is,' Spock murmured, but Jim could sense no such quiet acceptance in the emotions he was picking up through the touch.

'I can still be sorry,' he said, pressing his hands against the Vulcan's back. 'I hate this, Spock,' he continued, anger coming into his voice. 'I _hate_ being helpless, being able to do _nothing_ to help you.'

'Jim,' Spock said softly. He carefully moved the human back from him, his hands on his shoulders. 'Jim, you must let go of your anger. It cannot profit you.'

'No,' Jim murmured quietly. 'No, I know it can't.'

'Jim, I have made a number of decisions today,' Spock told him. 'May we sit and talk?'

'Okay,' Jim said rather nervously. There was something in Spock's tone of voice that concerned him. 'Take my seat, Spock. I'll get the other.'

'I can sit in my usual place,' Spock said stubbornly, moving about the desk to find the second chair. He had the benefit of being far more familiar with Jim's quarters than with some other areas of the ship.

'Okay,' Jim said, although he watched the Vulcan attentively until he had found the chair and sat down. Jim seated himself, then asked, 'Okay, Spock. Give.'

'I have made two decisions that I think are of great importance, Jim,' Spock told him, resting his hands on the desk. His fingers fell on a stylus, and he picked it up and began to turn it in his hand. 'My first decision is to do all I can to retain my position in Starfleet, and stay on the ship. I have found evidence today of a number of blind personnel in Starfleet, mostly in the sciences, and spoken to the chief science officer of the USS _Aberdeen_, who is blind herself.'

'She is?' Kirk asked. He had never expected to feel that kind of leap of hope on hearing of someone else's disability.

'Affirmative,' Spock nodded. 'Her position sets a precedent which I believe will support my application to remain on board.'

'Yes. Yes, it should,' Jim mused. 'So – what's the other decision?' he asked rather tentatively.

'Jim, I must attend some kind of rehabilitation training,' Spock said in a rather less certain voice. 'It is absolutely imperative if I am to be able to function on board ship.'

'Well, if they can run any kind distance course – ' Jim began.

'No,' Spock said firmly. 'No, Jim. I understand your concerns, your reluctance for us to be parted. I do not look forward to it myself – but I must attend a physical training course. I cannot possibly train remotely. The doctor has looked into it and there are a number of places on Earth which offer such training. The most promising is located in San Francisco, and has a loose affiliation with Starfleet Academy.'

'Going back to the Academy,' Jim said rather wistfully.

'It will not be quite like my student days,' Spock said, with a hint of humour in his voice that Jim found hopelessly endearing.

'No, of course it won't, Spock,' he said. 'But I miss that place.'

Spock lifted an eyebrow. 'I am sure you do,' he said. 'You have told me so many stories of your escapades that I am amazed you ever graduated. However, I have also heard you referred to as a stack of books with legs. I have never been sure whom to believe.'

Jim laughed. 'Well, maybe a bit of both,' he said. 'I got up to plenty, believe me, but I never neglected my studies.'

'I sometimes wish I had known you then,' Spock said, and Jim looked up in surprise at the rare admission of regret.

'Well, you know me now, Spock,' he said. 'I wish I'd known you as a lithe eighteen year old, but we can't have everything.'

Spock's eyebrow raised even further. 'I am not sure I have ever been described in that way,' he said.

Jim laughed. 'I bet you were, though. Probably serious as hell, and if I was a walking stack of books you were probably a walking library – but still, I would have like to have seen you.'

'I'll have my mother send you a holo,' Spock said rather irreverently, and then became sober as a shadow passed over his face.

'You haven't told them yet, have you?' Jim asked. Spock had barely ever spoken to Jim about his parents. He didn't know their names, knew nothing beyond the fact that the Vulcan father was an ambassador and the human mother a teacher. He could barely imagine what Spock's mother might look like.

'No,' Spock said. 'I have not told them.'

Jim knew better than to push him on the subject. He didn't know what had gone on between Spock and his parents but it was obvious there was something there making a wall between them.

'Spock, what about this rehabilitation?' he asked seriously. 'Have you found out anything about it? I mean, beyond that it's in San Francisco and allied to the Academy.'

'Very little,' Spock admitted. 'The good doctor intends to contact the institution and also to apply for funding from Starfleet.'

'Well, that should be no problem,' Jim said quickly. 'They have a duty to you.'

'Yes,' Spock said. 'I expect the doctor to let me know tomorrow what he has found out.'

'Okay,' Jim said.

He sat there just looking at the Vulcan for a few moments. He felt as if he were being torn two ways. His ship was everything to him, but so was Spock, and he did not want Spock to leave. He did not want their bond to be stretched so thin, and he hated to think of Spock alone and blind on Earth. But he knew that he must let him train if he were ever to return to the ship.

'I've been doing a little paperwork of my own, Spock,' he admitted. 'Sorting out what's happening once we're done with Deneva. Mom wants Sam and Aurelan brought home to be buried. I don't know if the ship will be passing near Earth. We can't divert for something like this. But I should be able to take some compassionate leave and if so I can make the journey to Earth with you.'

Spock relaxed visibly at that.

'That would be a relief,' he admitted. 'I had imagined travelling with a nurse or a paid companion to help me.'

Jim reached out to cover Spock's hand with his. He could only imagine how distasteful Spock would find it to be forced to rely on someone like that, someone who was not a close friend.

'I'm not going to leave you alone in this, Spock,' he said firmly. 'I promise. I will be at your side.'

'Jim, you _cannot_ always be at my side,' Spock said mildly.

Something seemed to ignite in Jim at that. There was his ship, practically the single-most important thing in his world. The ship was almost an extension of himself. He could feel its heartbeat through the plates as he walked on the deck. He knew every part of it, right down to how it smelt. But then there was Spock. Spock had been in his life from the moment he had walked onto the _Enterprise_ to take command. The two of them were almost inseparable in his memory. There had been no first moment with either of them apart. They had come together, the ship and Spock, two forces that would take and steer his life onto greater things.

But Spock was alive, Spock had a living, breathing soul, and no matter how much Jim anthropomorphised the ship around him he could not truly pretend that it was alive. It would never miss him if he were gone. It did not care who sat in the command chair. He needed to be with Spock through this. The ship would still be there, even if he were gone. He did not voice any of these thoughts to Spock because he knew that he would try to convince him otherwise, but he became determined to stay at the Vulcan's side for as long as if took to get him back where he belonged.

He would get on the comm as soon as he had a moment without Spock and talk to the relevant authorities, try to get some kind of temporary reassignment to Earth. Scotty would make an admirable acting captain. There would be a way, there _must_ be a way, for him to be able to be with Spock through this.


	6. Chapter 6

Spock would not want to admit it to anyone, but this journey was highly disconcerting in his current condition. Once Jim had started things in motion they had moved with astonishing speed, and it was no more than two days after their discussion of his plans in Jim's cabin that the ship left Deneva for a brief visit to Starbase 53, where he and Jim were be dropped off in order to take a civilian ferry to Earth. He had learnt a few techniques for mobility and self-care in those last few days, but not nearly enough to feel in any way competent to take care of himself.

The bustle around him on the Starbase as they queued to board the ferry was distracting to more than one sense. There was a constant murmur of speech, and somewhere in the background music was being piped over loudspeakers. There was evidently some kind of eatery nearby, where plates clashed and conversation rose and fell. Scents billowed around him of coffee, fried food, human perfumes and sweat. He had grown to notice the scent of fabrics, the differing smell of recycled air depending on the processor, the slight release of scent whenever a rubber-soled shoe rubbed against the deck. He was keeping his mental shields tightly up due to the crowds and the chance of being jostled by a shieldless human, and so his mind felt blind as well as his eyes.

'Are you all right, Spock?' Jim asked him solicitously.

'I am quite fine,' he said. It was not true that Vulcans could not lie.

'It's a bit of a bottleneck to get on board,' Jim said. 'I'm sorry.'

'It cannot be helped,' Spock replied.

It was true. It could not be helped. He and the captain were very used to the convenience of travelling by starship, but this was evidently how most civilians travelled, and he would have to put up with it.

'At least the baggage is already on board,' Jim murmured.

Spock gave a wordless noise of response. He was aware that along with the baggage were the two coffins containing Jim's brother and sister-in-law. It was hard to forget that considering that their travelling companion was young Peter Kirk.

'Jim, where is Peter?' he asked curiously, turning his head and trying to hear any sign of him.

'Dammit,' Jim cursed softly, looking around. 'He was right here. Look, Spock, I'd better go look for him. I'll be back in just a moment. You'll be all right?'

Spock pressed his lips together, and nodded. He could not say that he found being pressed in this queue in any way enjoyable, but at least there was a certain relentless direction to it. He could hardly become lost. But he felt utterly helpless. He held his hands still at his sides rather than holding them up as he wanted to and clamped down on his emotional reaction to the situation, trying to rationalise it away.

'Hey, come on, fella,' someone said behind him, and he realised from the absence of that strange sensation of physical closeness in front of him that the queue had moved on.

He took a step forward, and another, holding out his hand a little before him. After a moment his fingertips pushed into soft fabric over fatty flesh, and he stopped abruptly.

'I apologise,' he began.

The person in front of him moved, perhaps turning to look around, and said quickly, 'No worries, no worries at all, sir.'

Spock nodded silently, and then withdrew into himself. He hoped that Jim would be back soon, but he was almost at the check in desk before he heard his captain returning.

'Spock, I'm so sorry,' he panted, pushing back into the queue with muttered apologies to those around them. A curiously sweet smell rose around them as he did. 'The little wretch was in the arcade. He just won a sackful of candy. Peter, I'm going to have a stern talk with you when we're on board. You know I can't just walk off and leave Spock like that.'

Spock resisted reaction. He felt so confined, so unutterably helpless, but he stayed largely silent as Jim dealt with the check in and led him on board the great warp shuttle.

'Let's just get to our cabin, Spock,' Jim muttered, leading him quickly on through the ship. 'Now – twenty-two A, twenty-two A...'

'It should be on the port side, level two,' Spock said, and felt Jim's astonishment. 'I am familiar with the schematics for the _Alison Swan_ class of civilian transport, Captain. If we have entered through the aft starboard hatch then we will need to go straight ahead until we see an elevator on the left. That will take us to level two, and from there – '

'Let's take it in stages, eh, Spock?' Jim muttered, still sounding rather awed. 'Petey. Peter, can you _please_ manage to stay with us? He's never been off world before,' he commented in a tone meant only for Spock's ears.

'It is bound to be a fascinating experience for him,' Spock replied, but considering the candy that Jim had mentioned and that he could still smell, he was rather afraid that soon Peter would be, to use one of Jim's colloquialisms, bouncing off the walls.

((O))

He tried to meditate lying on the wide double bed later, but he had been correct in his prediction as to Peter's probable reaction to the candy. All he could hear from the small living area outside the bedroom was Peter repeatedly banging something, the occasional sharp word of remonstrance from Jim, the banging subsiding and then setting up again, and Jim shouting again. It was impossible to meditate with such distractions going on.

Spock sat up and swivelled to put his feet on the ground. He could not with a clear conscience leave Jim to deal alone with this obviously disturbed child. Perhaps the calm rationality of logic would help to soothe him.

He got to his feet and stood still for a moment to orient himself. He had made no exploration of the room yet, but had simply walked from the door to the bed with Jim's guidance. He should at least be able to walk back again.

He was a few centimetres off, his hand striking the wall instead of the door, but the door hissed open anyway in response to his nearness, and helped to orient him. He stepped into the small outer room, and immediately stumbled over something on the floor. He fell hard to his knees. Jim exploded.

'For God's sake, Pete, I told you not to leave that case there!'

Peter immediately blew up in response. 'I don't care! I don't want to be here anyway. I don't want to be travelling with _him _and I don't want to be with you!'

There was a small flurry which Spock assumed was Peter storming out of the room. One advantage to modern technology – or disadvantage, to the angry – was that doors could not be slammed. Something was certainly banged though as Peter went into the sleeping quarters. Since the suite had only one bedroom, and a bed settee in the living room, the only place Peter could retreat to was Jim and Spock's room.

'I'm going to wring his neck,' Jim muttered as he helped Spock to his feet.

'You are not,' Spock said reasonably. 'The child is grieving for his parents and his home. Gentleness and understanding will serve you better.'

'You're unbelievable, Spock,' Jim muttered, then added, 'No, I mean it as a compliment. You're the one who's just gone flying, and you're advocating understanding.'

'It is a logical means to an end,' Spock said. He did not add that in his Vulcan-human upbringing it was the human parent who taught him about tolerance, and the Vulcan about rigidity. 'Perhaps I should speak to the boy.'

Jim laughed mirthlessly. 'Spock, I'm his uncle. If I can't get through to him...'

'When did you last see him, Jim?'

'See him? God...' He trailed off, lost for a moment in thought. 'I spoke to him briefly last time I called Sam, and that was – that was over a year ago, Spock,' he said guiltily. 'But the last time I saw him – I mean, actually physically spent time with him – I think he was four years old. Captaining a ship of the line doesn't give you much time for family visits.'

'I quite understand,' Spock said. 'It could be that he harbours a certain resentment over your absence, especially since if the _Enterprise_ had arrived sooner his parents might have been saved. But in all essence, I may be hardly less familiar to him than you.'

Jim sighed, and Spock wished for the briefest moment that he could see his face. He knew his mention of the ship's late visit to the planet must have upset him, but after all, the truth was always preferable to lies.

'Maybe you're right, Spock. Or maybe what he needs right now is a stranger anyway. I don't know. But I'm willing for you to try.'

'Then if I have your consent – '

'You mean right now, Spock?'

'The human phrase is to strike while the iron is hot, is it not?'

Jim laughed quietly. 'That's the phrase. Just – don't strike too hard, will you, Spock?'

'I will not,' Spock promised.

((O))

For a moment Spock was not sure where the young boy was in the cabin, but he had thought it best that Jim did not come in with him. He stood by the door, listening. After a little time he heard the boy's breathing. He was trying to stifle the noise, obviously trying to hide from the blind Vulcan, but the sound was audible to Spock anyway, and every now and then a slight hitch from recent tears made the noise even more obvious. In order to help orient himself Spock cautiously lowered his mental shields, and almost recoiled from the raw barrage of emotion that hit him.

'Peter, it is quite useless to pretend you are not here,' he said after a moment in a very patient voice. 'There is nowhere else for you to be. Besides, I can hear you breathing.'

The silence stretched out, but after a moment Peter said in a rather choked voice, 'Could be in the bathroom, couldn't I?'

Spock's eyebrow rose. He had not known there was access to the bathroom from this room.

'You could indeed,' he acknowledged. 'You will have to be patient with my blindness. It is as unfamiliar to me as it is to you. I do not know this room yet.'

There was a small snort of air. Spock could not interpret the meaning of the noise, but it sounded as if the boy were unimpressed, or at least unwilling to listen.

'Peter, are you on the bed?' he asked.

There was no reply. Spock took a few steps towards the boy, feeling certain that he was at least near the bed, if not on it. After approximately two metres his leg touched the edge of the mattress, and he sat down there, feeling about across the covers to see where Peter was.

'I'm not on the bed,' the boy said after a moment, in a rather grudging but slightly more open tone.

'Very well,' Spock nodded. He reassessed the evidence of his senses, and decided the boy was probably on the floor behind the bed. 'Peter, I am truly sorry about the loss of your parents,' he said after a moment of silence.

Peter laughed, and the sound reminded him very much of Jim's humourless laugh in the cabin outside. He thought he could understand why the boy sounded disbelieving. To most humans Vulcans were characterised as completely emotionless automatons, incapable of any kind of sympathy.

'Contrary to popular opinion, Vulcans are able to feel grief, and to empathise with grief,' he said. 'We, too, suffer loss. I have never lost a parent, but I have known loss.'

'I just want to go home,' the boy said after a silence, and there was the roughness of tears in his voice.

'I am quite aware of that,' Spock nodded. 'But there is very little left of your home, Peter. All of your possessions have been packed and will accompany us to Earth. It is true that the building stands, but a building is a shell. There have been a great many deaths on Deneva. The world will be in considerable disarray for some time. It is possible it will be a dangerous place to live for a while. At your grandmother's you will be safe, and cared for.'

Peter began to sob. Spock sat still for a moment, unsure of what to do. Then he got up and carefully manoeuvred around the bed until his outstretched hand touched the boy's shoulder. He was evidently hunched up on the floor in the narrow gap between the bed and the wall. He was not comfortable with the idea of holding the boy, so he simply sat on the side of the bed with his hand on his shoulder. With the touch came an almost unbearable assault of undisciplined emotions, but he did bear it, and tried to impart his own ability to draw on calm and logic. It was not a mind meld, but simply a touch which should be therapeutic to the boy.

After a while the sobbing subsided, and Spock felt the chaotic emotions start to even out too. He sat still with his hand on Peter's shoulder, and waited for him to make a move. Eventually the boy straightened out and stood up.

'I'm sorry, Mr Spock,' he said.

'It is no matter, Peter,' he said.

'Is Uncle Jim really mad at me?' he asked.

'He is concerned about you,' Spock corrected him gently. 'You must remember, Peter, that the captain is also grieving. He has lost his brother.'

'Yeah, I know,' Peter murmured. Then he said in a wondering voice, 'Gee, I'm hungry.'

'It is well past dinner time, going by _Enterprise_ time,' Spock pointed out. 'Peter, would you help me back into the main cabin?'

'Er – yeah, sure,' he said rather awkwardly, and a small, tear-moistened hand closed around Spock's. With some trepidation, Spock followed him out through the room.

'I'm sorry, Uncle Jim,' Peter said as soon as they were through the door, letting go of the Vulcan's hand. Spock stood quietly, trying not to listen too closely as some kind of reconciliation went on between the boy and his uncle. He could not imagine that this would be the last of their problems with Peter, but perhaps for a little while he would be all right.

'Captain, Peter was suggesting it is time for something to eat,' Spock said once the reconciliation was apparently complete.

'Oh, well, there's a good restaurant down on deck 3, I think,' Jim said quickly. 'Unless you'd rather have room service, Spock. Actually, I guess that would be better...'

'I would rather eat in the restaurant,' Spock said firmly. That was misdirection, at best. Spock would far rather have stayed confined to these few rooms than go out parading among the other passengers, but he was keenly aware that the only way he could adapt to this blindness was to carry on doing what he could. There was no other way in which he could learn.

'Really, Spock? Are you sure?' Jim asked him. Spock found the degree of anxiousness in his voice slightly irritating.

'I am not an invalid, Jim,' he said quietly. 'I would rather eat dinner in the restaurant.'

((O))

Spock was grateful that the restaurant did not appear to be too crowded, but that was one of its few saving graces. He had not eaten outside of his or Jim's cabin since his blinding, and although Jim assured him that he was quite neat enough, it was a frustrating business trying to detect and manage food at the end of metal pieces of cutlery. The only respite was that on arriving Peter apparently spied a children's area, and elected to go and eat his meal with other children on the flight instead of with his guardian.

'Well, it's nice to be alone, anyway,' Jim said with a sigh as Peter's footsteps retreated into an area that sounded rather less calm than the main dining area.

'Alone is a relative term,' Spock pointed out.

'Yes, of course, there's alone and alone,' Jim agreed, 'but this will do for now. I want to talk to you about what happens when we get to Earth, Spock.'

'I believed that was all arranged, Jim,' Spock replied. 'We were to travel to Riverside and stay for fourteen days, and then you would accompany me to San Francisco and remain for five days before returning to the ship.'

'Ah, yes,' Jim said, sounding a little guilty. 'Yes, that's what I told you...'

Spock lifted an eyebrow curiously. 'That is not our actual itinerary?'

At that point the waiter arrived with their food, and there was a brief interruption as he set down plates and drinks.

'Want me to tell you where everything is, Spock?' Jim asked as the waiter moved away, and Spock nodded briefly. The clock system was another tactic that Jim had learnt from the computer, and he proceeded to describe what was on the Vulcan's plate in terms of where it would sit on the face of an analogue timepiece.

Spock listened, but he was more concerned as to how Jim had changed their itinerary than exactly where his food was.

'Captain, you were saying,' he prompted.

'Don't get mad at me,' Jim began a little warily.

'I never get mad,' Spock said. As he sat facing his partner and captain in the darkness he felt a fleeting moment of desire to be able to see the expressions on his face that would tell him so much.

'Spock, I've taken an extended transfer off the _Enterprise_,' Jim said in a rush, as if skipping over the words would make them less of a shock.

'I – beg your pardon, Jim?' Spock asked, setting down his cutlery, wondering if he had perhaps heard wrongly against the background noise in the room and the kitchen beyond.

'You heard me right, Spock. I knew you'd argue so I thought I'd wait until it was a _fait accompli._'

Spock pressed his lips together hard, declining to speak, but with a million thoughts moving in his mind. He could feel Jim about to speak again, but just before he did some kind of commotion arose from across the room, a voice raising in anger.

'Oh dear god, Peter,' Jim muttered.

Spock sighed. He had thought that their problems with Peter had been solved, at least for tonight.

'I'll be back in a second,' Jim said.

'Of course,' Spock nodded.

He sat listening attentively as Jim walked away across the room and got into discussion with what sounded like two males and a female. His eyebrow rose a little at their accent, although the features Spock detected were very subtle, probably inaudible to most. It appeared that Peter had inadvertently tossed a foam ball out of the children's play area, which had landed in one of the party's soup. Jim was occupied for some minutes in restoring peace to the disturbed diners and offering to pay for a new bowl of soup.

'Orion, Jim?' Spock asked as his captain returned.

'No, Spock,' Jim said as he sat, sounding surprised. 'Human, or near as dammit. Peter had – '

'I heard,' Spock said, dismissing the incident from his mind. He wanted to know more about Jim's drastic decision to temporarily leave the _Enterprise. _'Jim, you were talking, before we were interrupted, about your transfer.'

'Yes, I was,' Jim said. 'Spock, I did a lot of thinking, weighing things up in my mind, over the last few days. I came down to the realisation that it's _you_, Spock. I know the _Enterprise _is my ship, she's the most important thing in my life. _Almost _the most important thing. But the most important is you. I want to be able to support you through this, and the ship will survive with Scotty at the helm for a few months. So I called up an Admiral or two, pulled all the strings that I could, and I've got a ground assignment at Fleet headquarters.'

'Jim, I – ' Spock began, but he truly felt as if he did not have the words. This was unprecedented, and it was almost impossible to cogitate the lengths Jim would have had to go to to secure such a transfer. He had never imagined Jim voluntarily leaving his ship. He could think of dozens of logical arguments but he knew that none would sway this stubborn human.

'There's no point in trying to argue, Spock,' Jim said, confirming his thoughts. 'It's done. It's all settled. There's something going on at headquarters – I can't talk about it here – and they were looking for a person with experience in the right area. Well, I've got that experience, and so I put myself forward for the job. I'll be desk-bound in the daytime, but I'll be there for you every morning and evening and weekend. I'm not going to leave you alone in this.'

Spock pushed at an unidentifiable soft shape on his plate with the end of his fork. He felt perturbed at the thought of Jim giving up so much for him, but he was not sure if his discomfort was at the captain losing his command, albeit temporarily, or at the assumption that he, Spock, would not be able to function alone in San Francisco. Or was it that he was afraid that it was true that he would not be able to function alone in San Francisco, and he was discomforted by that thought? Perhaps it was his own helplessness which disturbed him, and Jim's need to help him was only a physical manifestation of that helplessness.

He reached out for his glass of water and closed his hands around the cool sides, summoning calm and rationality. What was, was. He was blind. Jim would be with him in San Francisco. That was what was going to happen, and there was no way, and no reason, to change it.


	7. Chapter 7

In the cool double bed in their cabin Spock moved a little closer to Jim. He was comfortable, but it was decidedly chilly on this human ship compared to his quarters on the _Enterprise_. For the first time since leaving he felt a small lurch in his chest. If he did not satisfactorily complete this rehabilitation training and pass the mandated tests, he would never return to that cabin. It had not struck him until now that he could be permanently leaving the only home he had known for over a decade.

'I'd turn the heating up if I could,' Jim murmured. 'I'm sorry, Spock. Tran-Space is essentially a human line.'

'Yes, I am aware,' Spock said. 'Jim, you said you would tell me more about your transfer once we were in private. Now Peter is asleep – '

'Yes, yes, I did,' Jim said.

He sounded decidedly sleepy, but he roused himself, straightening up in the bed and sitting up against the pillows. Spock could feel through their latent link Jim's mind becoming more alert, settling into command mode. He wondered at Jim giving up his position of command over four hundred and thirty crewmembers to take this job at headquarters, even if it were temporary. Command was in his blood. It was his first love. But then there was that other Jim, he was aware, the one who owned stacks of antique real-paper books with dusty aromas, who could quote D. H. Lawrence and Melville at the drop of a hat, who loved the taste of fresh air and earth beneath his feet. Perhaps this transfer was not utterly against his nature. The Deneva incident had put a great strain on the young captain both personally and professionally, and perhaps a total change would do him good.

'Jim, are you absolutely sure you want to give up your – ' Spock began.

'_Yes_, Spock,' Jim cut over him. 'Yes, I'm sure. I need to be with you, Spock – not because I think you're helpless, not because I pity you, but because I _love_ you. You're part of me and I'm part of you. I couldn't stand to have you so far away and going through this.'

Spock reached a hand out to touch Jim's warm chest. He could feel his heart thudding beneath his ribs. It was oddly placed compared to Vulcan anatomy, but he had grown used to it. There it was, so undeniably strong and real. In this closeness of night time he could almost pretend that he was not blind, that the light was simply turned off, that Jim was as much in the dark as he was.

'Thank you, Jim,' he said simply.

Jim put his hand over Spock's. 'I couldn't do anything else, Spock. Now, about this assignment. Headquarters had been putting out feelers for someone to take this job for a few weeks. It was a lucky coincidence. You know what it's like there, Spock. They're either all paper-pushers or men who've been away from active command for so long that they don't remember what it's like. Very few of them have recent frontier experience, recent first contacts under their belts, recent engagements with enemies. They wanted someone who's been out among the stars, taking in new experiences.'

'But for what, Jim?' Spock asked.

Jim lowered his voice, even though it was extremely unlikely that anyone could overhear. The walls were not so thin on this ship, and Spock could tell from the quiescent mental emanations that young Peter Kirk was fast asleep.

'There have been suspicions recently that there might be foreign agents trying to infiltrate Command,' he said in a low voice. 'I shouldn't even be telling you, really, but I know there's a chance you'd pick it up in a meld, so I need to let you know. Also, I value your advice and I thought you might be able to help me. Now, they don't know who they are or where they're from, but it's vital that they're picked up. They could even be Klingon or Romulan, and if they've penetrated our defences so deeply we can't let them get back to their homeland.'

Spock lay in silence, cogitating what Jim had told him. It would indeed be a concern if there were spies or assassins so close to the heart of the Federation and Starfleet, but he wondered how Jim hoped to have any success in routing them out. He was not a detective or an expert in espionage, but a starship captain known for working very close to the edge of regulations. Some might call him a live wire. He still could not imagine Jim being content to stay in a job that bound him to Earth.

'Exactly what kind of danger are they thought to pose?' he asked.

'They don't know that yet, either,' Jim said grimly. 'It could be anything from simply sending data back to their masters to planning a terrorist attack or some kind of coup. It's my job to find out.'

Spock lay in the dark and considered that. It seemed a stretch for one man to investigate such things. Surely he would have a team under him? He could not help but wonder if there was something Jim was still keeping from him, something that made _him_ right for the job over any other person. But then Jim was an extraordinary human being. What was it he had said during the Deneva crisis? _I want that third alternative_. Perhaps that was what made Jim the perfect choice for an assignment like this. He did not stop at the obvious. He always searched for the third alternative.

((O))

After three nights on the ferry, arrival was quite as hectic as departure, with lines of humans jostling and pushing to get out into the space dock as if they were desperate to rejoin with Earth. Quite probably they _were_ desperate for just that. Not many people spent as much time in space as Starfleet officers and a fair proportion found space travel deeply unnerving.

Spock was clad in a dark charcoal suit, anticipating that spring in Iowa would not be quite warm enough for comfort. He did not know how Jim was dressed but he knew that he was in civilian clothes, and the fabric of his jacket was soft under his hand as he followed him through the dock. Peter trailed behind, reluctant, but at least with the party rather than attempting to escape into shops or arcades as he had on the starbase. The three days travel to Earth had allowed him to reconcile himself a bit more fully with his fate.

'We'll cut through to the Fleet section and use the transporter there,' Jim told Spock as they navigated through the crowds.

'We are not on duty. Is that quite ethical?' Spock asked.

Jim laughed. 'They won't mind, Spock, and it beats taking the communal transporter to Chicago and having to trek back to Riverside from there.'

'Likely there would be a shuttle station or local transporter terminal very near the Chicago terminal,' Spock pointed out.

'Spock, we're using the Fleet transporter,' Jim said, putting on his command voice. 'No arguments. I've got a twelve year old boy in tow, and – '

'And a blind man,' Spock finished for him.

Jim sighed. 'I didn't say that, Spock.'

'No, you did not,' Spock replied. 'But it is a given that my presence is causing you extra difficulty. There is no logic in denying that.'

'I'm not even going to get into that,' Jim said firmly. 'Now, I need to go up to the transport desk for a minute to make sure they send all the luggage to the right place. I need to give them the details of the funeral home in Riverside. Keep having nightmares of them beaming Sam and Aurelan straight down to mom's place, and – well – ' He trailed off, obviously remembering the presence of Peter nearby. It was quite common on the _Enterprise_ to displace grief and shock with a rather crude gallows humour, but there was a time and a place.

'If you will take me to the side of this area I will stay with Peter until you are done,' Spock offered. He was sure that it would not be good for Peter to hear his uncle talking about arrangements with the funeral home and the mass of packed up belongings from his home on Deneva.

'Thank you, Spock,' Jim said with real relief. 'Look, there's a waiting area over there, with seats. I'll take you over, and I will be back from sorting this out as soon as possible.'

((O))

They beamed down into cool fresh air, the sound of light wind rustling leaves, and sunshine that was strong if not terribly warm on the side of Spock's face. He heard Jim take in a deep breath, but there was a hitch in the sound, as if he were trying to suppress strong emotion.

'I always loved the farm at this time of year,' Jim said, but Spock could still hear that catch in his voice. He closed his fingers a little tighter around Jim's arm, giving him a silent mental projection of reassurance.

There was a flurry of noise nearby, a door opening and then the voice of an older woman saying, 'Oh, Jim! Jim, I didn't realise you'd be here so soon.'

Spock relinquished his hold on Jim's arm, and the captain moved away from him, walking with firm steps over towards where that voice had come from.

'We took the Fleet transporter, got us down here a bit faster than it would have to go through civilian immigration and public channels,' Jim was saying as he strode across the ground.

_Grassed_, Spock thought, by the feeling underfoot and the sound as Jim walked. Presumably they had been beamed to the house's front yard, but it was disconcerting that he could not immediately tell if that were true or not. He could hear the trees and occasionally the sound of the wind buffeting what was probably the house, but beyond that he was in a completely unknown situation.

'Never mind, never mind, you're here, and I'm always ready for you,' the woman said. Then her voice seemed to break, and she said, 'Oh, Jimmy...'

Jim's voice sounded muffled now. 'I know, mom, I know.'

Spock imagined they were hugging, but what he didn't expect was the sudden welling of pain and grief from his bondmate's mind. He didn't know if Jim were visibly crying, but in his mind it was as if a wall had suddenly broken down and tears were flooding through. Spock took a step forward instinctively, but he did not want to intrude, and to all extents and purposes he was standing on a small island with almost unknown waters around him. He wondered where Peter was, but Jim's mental emanations were so strong he could sense no others.

'Oh, Spock, I'm sorry,' Jim said suddenly, and Spock was aware that he had turned back to him. 'Mom, this is Spock,' he said, coming across the lawn to take hold of his arm. 'Petey, why don't you go say hi to your grandmother?'

Now Jim was more in control Spock could sense Peter, filled with uncertainty, shyness, and something that bubbled beneath like anger.

'There, don't bother the boy,' Jim's mother said quietly, coming across to them as Spock heard Peter's footsteps slam away against the ground in a run. 'He'll probably go out to the tree house. He spent hours in there, days almost, last time he came with – ' Her voice broke, and for a moment there were no words, until she said, 'I am so sorry, Mr Spock. So rude of me.'

'Not at all, Mrs Kirk,' Spock assured her in a gentle voice.

'You've had your own loss to bear,' she murmured, and Spock felt that awkwardness that seemed to rise in every human who encountered him since losing his sight. 'Well, come on inside,' she said, injecting a false cheerfulness into her voice. 'I'll get coffee on, and we can sit and talk. It's been a long time since you and I talked, Jimmy. You don't visit enough.'

After a little time inside Spock found himself alone with Mrs Kirk while Jim went outside to check on Peter and try to persuade him to come in. He sat on a wooden chair with his arms resting on a wooden table, holding the handle of a mug of coffee which he had accepted more for courtesy's sake than real thirst.

'Jim said that he's staying on Earth for a while, so he can be with you, Mr Spock,' Mrs Kirk said, as if to break the silence, which was in danger of become awkward.

'Yes, the captain feels a great sense of responsibility – ' Spock began, but Mrs Kirk interrupted.

'You know, he's told me all about you,' she said, 'been completely honest with me. I know you're in a relationship with him, and I'm fine with that. I'm just happy that he's happy.'

Spock relaxed his spine a little so that it touched the chair back. It was a relief to hear that. He had not been sure what Jim had said and he was anticipating separate bedrooms and having to continue some kind of charade of mere friendship in front of his mother's eyes.

'Mrs Kirk – ' he began.

'Winona, please,' she told him. 'Or Win, if you want to get really familiar.'

He could hear the smile in her voice, but there were still waves of sadness behind it. She was obviously holding on to her grief.

'Winona,' Spock nodded, his voice taking on a formal tone. 'I am grateful for your acceptance and honoured by the opening of your doors to me.'

He could feel her smile now. Her mind held similarities to Jim's, and without shutting down his shields entirely against her, her emotions felt like a soft sea washing against him.

'That sounds like a ritual phrase,' she said.

'Correct,' he nodded, 'but none the less meant.'

'Spock, I am very, _very_ grateful for everything you did, the tests you went through, to help those people on Deneva,' she told him.

'I did no more than was my duty,' Spock said gravely. 'I also acted to save myself.'

'Nonetheless, you helped to save my grandson, and he's all I have left of Jim's brother.'

Spock bowed his head momentarily. He had never met Samuel Kirk in life, but he had been startled at how very much he looked like Jim, and he felt a certain regret that he would never know him.

There was a clatter as Jim's mother set her mug down on the table. He could feel the change in her emotions, the strong grief being forcibly overlain with cheerfulness.

'It looks like Jim might be outside for a while with poor Pete,' she said. 'Now, you're staying here for two weeks, aren't you, Spock? Would you like me to take you around the house so you know where things are? You might want to get familiar with the bathroom and the kitchen and where the chairs are in the sitting room, at least.'

Spock hesitated. He had been focussing so intently on the sound of Winona's voice and what she was saying that he had stopped noticing the darkness so acutely. Now it rushed back again and he was suddenly reminded of everything that it meant. He was bound here to this chair in a room he could not see, reliant on the goodwill of those around him if he wanted to move about, reliant on their help to get food, to pick out his clothes, to go anywhere beyond learned and familiar routes – and as yet no route was familiar in this place. He knew nothing about Jim's home.

He felt a catastrophic breaking down of his ability to control of a kind that had not hit him since his blinding. This was it. This was how it would be for the rest of his life, always dependent, always trapped by the inability of light to reach his brain. What idiocy to think that he would be able to return to his duties on the _Enterprise_. Idiocy to think that his relationship with Jim could continue through a carer-patient partnership. Idiocy to think that he would be _all right_, that things would heal, that this could be overcome.

'Spock? Mr Spock?' Jim's mother asked anxiously.

He took in a deep breath, his hands tightening convulsively on the coffee mug. Abruptly, it shattered, and warm coffee flooded out from the almost full mug, over the table and down onto his lap.

'I am sorry, I am sorry,' he said quickly, shocked at his own lack of control. His hands were still cupped around a shattered collection of pottery shards and covered in a slick of rapidly cooling liquid.

Winona was on her feet, around at his side of the table, fussing around him as she tried to mop up the coffee both from the table and his sodden thighs. Her hands were over his, soft and gentle and cool as Jim's, but he could feel the age in them.

'Let me look, Mr Spock. Let's see. No, no harm done. There's no blood.'

She sounded like a mother reassuring her child. Spock still felt shocked, whited out at the sudden loss of control he had experienced. She was wiping his palms with a damp cloth, examining them closely it seemed.

'Just a tiny scratch on one,' she said, touching her fingertip to a place near the top of Spock's left palm. The telepathic assault of her touch was almost unbearable. He felt he had no ability to shield. There was so much pain in her mind, so much loss, even while she was masking it all and pretending to be concerned only over Spock's hands. Perhaps Vulcans were not the only masters of concealing emotion.

He tried to pull himself together, to make his voice steady and without inflection.

'I will, of course, pay for the cup.'

He had not succeeded. There was a tremor in his voice.

'Oh, no, don't be silly. It was just a mug. An old thing.'

'You must allow me to – ' Spock tried again, and then stopped. His desperate attempt to make recompense was as wildly emotional as the reaction that had broken the mug in the first place. 'Mrs Kirk, I don't think I'll take a tour of the house right now,' he said in a very level voice. 'Could you simply show me to my room? I am in need of meditation.'

'Of course, of course,' she said in a kindly tone. 'I don't think your luggage is here yet. I wonder if I have any old clothes of Jim's that would fit you? Your pants are soaked.'

He shook his head. 'There is no need to trouble yourself,' he said. All he wanted was to be left alone.

'Well, I'll have a look,' she promised.

As he stood up there was a small clatter as more pieces of the broken mug fell to the ground. Spock regretted causing so much disturbance so soon on entering Jim's family home, but there was nothing he could do. He allowed Mrs Kirk to take hold of his arm and manoeuvre him across the room. She took him to the stairs and showed him the banister and anxiously followed him up with a hand almost touching his back. He had not had to navigate stairs since his blinding, and he walked cautiously, pressing his foot to the back of the stair on each tread, feeling carefully to be sure if it were the last one or not.

'Here we are,' Mrs Kirk said as they reached the top, putting a hand on each arm from behind him. She steered him to the right, and then left, reaching around him to open a door. 'Here's your room. Do you want the bed or a chair? I wonder if I've got any of Jim's old clothes in the drawers here...'

Spock murmured responses and found himself sitting in what felt and smelt like a relatively old armchair while Jim's mother scraped open drawers and banged them closed again.

'Here you are, dear,' she said, putting a wad of fabric into his hands. 'There's his old jeans. Gosh, I remember when he used to wear these... They might be a tiny bit short in the leg for you, but he was a bit slimmer in those days, and I think they'll be about right round the waist.'

'Thank you, Mrs Kirk,' Spock said, moving a hand over the roughness of the denim. He did not want to put the jeans on. He just wanted to be left alone. She seemed to sense that, and after a few more irrelevant comments she left the room.

Spock breathed out a long, calming breath, and closed his eyes in the sudden peace. He stretched out his legs and noticed again the cold, clinging feeling of the drenched trousers over him. The liquid was definitely cold now, and making him shiver. He stood and peeled the garment off, leaving it neatly folded on the floor. He brushed his hands over his thighs to try to wipe away the last remnants of the coffee. The scent rose around him as it evaporated from his warm skin. His underpants were wet too, and he took them off. Then, suddenly conscious of his semi-nudity in this unfamiliar room, he unfolded the jeans and slipped them on.

The feeling of the fabric against his skin was strangely reassuring. The overwhelming scent of the jeans was that of clothes put away for a long time, but beneath that, faint but lingering, he could smell _Jim_, and that scent was like a warm blanket to him. He felt a flicker of positivity alight in his chest, but the darkness around it was so great. He felt very tired in his mind.

He steepled his fingers in front of his face, pressing his fingertips together to try to push their formation into his mind even though he could not visually focus on the shape they made. He tried to bring himself down into a place of clarity, a place of calm. He tried to make himself aware of his feelings, examine them, and carefully remove them.

He failed.


	8. Chapter 8

Jim came back weary but satisfied from the tree house where Peter was holed up. The boy wasn't ready yet to come into the house but they had shared a long talk and quite a few tears, too. It had seemed to help the boy to see that his strong, adult, starship-captain uncle was capable of breaking down over the loss of Peter's parents too. Jim had promised to come out again in a little while to check on him, but he was happy that he would be all right there for a while. He just needed time alone, time he had had precious little of since waking up in sick bay and being told of his parents' deaths.

He walked into the kitchen to see his mom sitting alone at the table, nursing a cup of coffee that looked as if it had gone cold.

'Where's Spock, mom?' he asked instantly, registering the absence in the room.

'He's upstairs having a rest. Meditating,' she said tiredly. She looked down at the surface of her coffee, jiggling the cup a little so that ripples set up across the surface. 'I know they say Vulcans don't feel emotion, but there's a man with a lot on his mind,' she said, almost as if to herself. 'He's quite – Well, I don't know how to define it with a Vulcan. I think he's got a whole sackful of troubles on his shoulders, Jimmy.'

'What happened, mom?' he asked, concerned now.

She laughed quietly, but it was a sad sound. 'He broke your father's mug for one thing. You know the old brown one he always had his coffee in.'

'Oh, mom, I'm sorry,' Jim said sadly. He could still remember seeing dad sitting in his chair with that mug between his hands, warming them after cold winter work outside. 'You know, he's not used to being blind. He's – well, he's a little clumsy sometimes. He's trying so hard... Too hard, I think.'

'It doesn't matter,' she said. 'I've got all the pieces and I'll take it to the restoration shop on Monday. They fix at the molecular level, you know, good as new. It's not the first time it's happened.'

'No, I know that,' Jim said guiltily, remembering an incident with a baseball that he should not have had in the house. Mom _would_ insist on using the mug. Didn't want to make it into a museum piece, she said. Dad would never have wanted to be an exhibit.

'Anyway, he didn't knock it onto the floor,' she continued. 'He broke it with his bare hands.'

'_Spock_ did?' Jim asked, amazed. '_Spock_?'

She nodded, looking up at him. 'Vulcans are strong, aren't they? He was just holding it and – well – who am I to judge what's going on in his mind, but I suggested showing him around the house and he just seemed to deflate. Got very frustrated, I think. He just clenched his fists. I think he'd forgotten he was holding the mug – and it shattered. He said he needed to meditate and I took him up to your room, but – well, I don't know, Jim. It's an alien culture he's from and maybe meditation is exactly what he needs, but I can't help feeling what he really needs is someone to talk to.'

Jim felt torn horribly. He knew that his mom also probably needed someone to talk to, and he needed that just as much as she did. But Sam's death had happened over a week ago. Although he was still grieving the death itself was in the past, something he was trying to get over. Spock's problems were happening right now. He had been waiting for something like this, something to crack that monumental façade. Spock had been too composed since the first shock of what had happened had faded away. He had been right to expect the storm, he realised, and here it was, in full force. For someone like Spock, breaking a mug between his hands was tantamount to throwing a full on tantrum.

'Yeah, I'd better go to him,' he said. 'Pete's in the tree house still, mom. I told him we'd leave him alone for a little while. He's hurting quite badly, but I think he'll come round.'

'All right, I'll leave him there,' she nodded. 'You know, the boy could even sleep out there if he really wants to. Don't worry about me, Jim. Go to Spock. He needs you.'

Jim squeezed his hand gently on his mother's shoulder, and kissed the top of her head. Her hair was almost entirely grey now. Somehow in his memory it was always brown.

He sighed and went up the creaking wooden stairs. Despite all of the trouble that was encircling him at the moment, it was good to be home, good to be in a place with fresh air and real wood, with stairs and wooden floorboards, glass windows looking onto the fresh green of wheat starting into life, and a blue sky scudded with clouds.

Spock could see none of that. He bit his lip into his mouth. How could he wrap his mind around the magnitude of that? Could it be that he hadn't quite realised it himself? Spock was utterly, utterly blind. He did not even have light to help him. He never would have, if McCoy was right; and there was no reason to believe he was wrong. How could Spock, bright, independent, ever-curious Spock, be cut off from so much, so swiftly and irrevocably?

He put his hand on his bedroom door. This was all so familiar to him that it pulled deep in his chest, making him wish he could be fifteen and without care. Then he pushed the door open and saw Spock there, curled on the bed on top of the bright patchwork quilt that Jim's great-grandmother had made. He was still clad in his charcoal grey jacket and black polo neck shirt, but the faded jeans he wore were slightly too short, and showed a small gap of flesh before the black of his socks.

'Spock,' Jim said softly. He could tell that his partner was not asleep, although one hand was resting over the side of his face so his eyes were obscured. 'Are you okay?'

'Quite fine, Jim,' Spock said, without moving.

Jim stood there for a moment, just looking at him. That bare patch of skin between jeans and sock made his heart flutter. Then he moved forward and sat down on the edge of the bed near Spock's head.

'Don't tell me fish stories, Spock,' he said, putting a hand on his partner's shoulder. He almost winced at the raw jolt of emotion that hit him through the touch. 'You and I both know that's not true.'

Spock sighed and straightened out on the bed, resting his hands at his sides. His face looked pale and drawn.

'I was attempting to meditate,' he said. His eyes were empty, apparently focussed on the ceiling but in reality seeing nothing.

'You may have been attempting to meditate before,' Jim said, 'but how often do you meditate curled up with your hand over your face?'

'I did not claim to be successful,' Spock countered.

'Spock,' Jim said in a soft, low voice.

He bent over so he could kiss the Vulcan on the forehead, the cheek, the lips. Spock turned his head away.

'Spock, I'm not trying to seduce you,' Jim said with a touch of impatience. 'I'm not that insensitive.' He took the Vulcan's hand, held it hard. 'Let me in, Spock. Please, let me in.'

He fell into a dark and sucking pit. The emotions clamoured at him, beating against him, confusing his thoughts and making them into wordless beasts. There was no way to turn, no way to fight. He gasped, fighting for breath, flailing out, but to no avail. Everything was hopeless. There was nothing he could do. He could not breathe –

Abruptly the enveloping horror cut off. He could see again. He was sitting on the bed again, gasping, pressing a hand against his abdomen, heaving in air and relishing the light. He pushed a hand over his face, feeling the slick of sweat. Spock sat up, reaching out for him, wrapping his arms about him and holding him, pressing his face against Jim's neck.

'I am sorry. I am so sorry, Jim,' he murmured, half muffled, and Jim felt his emotions again, muted this time, veiled behind layers and layers of control, but still there. Spock felt guilt, enormous and enveloping. He felt that he had assaulted Jim with his mind.

'It's all right, it's all right,' Jim repeated as if he were soothing a child. 'No, Spock, it's all right. I asked you to let me in. You didn't hurt me. _You're_ hurting so badly, that's all.'

'So are you,' Spock said, almost in a whisper.

'That doesn't matter right now,' Jim said. 'No, it doesn't. Spock, mom told me you got frustrated and came upstairs. She told me about the coffee cup. I came up here for you, not for me.'

Spock stiffened, and Jim could feel him trying hard to pull back discipline and mind rules and eradicate the crushing emotion.

'You don't have to do that, Spock,' he said softly. 'You don't have to be strong in front of me.'

'I must be strong for myself,' Spock said in a voice which trembled with the effort of driving away the errant emotions.

'Talk to me, please,' Jim urged him. 'Before you shut it all away, talk to me. It doesn't always work, you know, locking these things up in a closet. One day the door bursts open.'

Spock drew in a shaking breath. 'I am full of self-doubt, Jim,' he said quietly. 'I doubt my ability to live in this way. I doubt my fitness for duty. I doubt – my relationship with you. I am no longer an equal. I am a dependant.'

Jim felt as if he had been punched in the chest. For a moment he imagined the bond pulling, dwindling, snapping and leaving him drifting with a hole ripped through his ribs.

'Spock,' he said, faltering. He strengthened his voice, and tried again. 'Spock, never, _never _think that you are a burden. Never think that I'd be better without you. Never think anything that puts you in a separate place from me. We are together, and we stay together. I love you. There's nothing more to it than that. I know those words, _I love you, _are hard for you to say. I don't expect to hear them, and I don't need to, because you show me through your actions and through your mind. But I can say them to you. I love you, and I will not leave you, no matter what.'

Spock exhaled, and an almost-smile touched his lips. He reached out, fumbling, and Jim took his hand, relieved that this time there was no fall into a vortex of emotion. Jim kissed him again, on the cheek and on the forehead, and then on the lips, and Spock returned the kiss, seeming to relax in gratitude at the loving touch.

'I will help you get through this,' Jim promised. 'I will do whatever it takes.'

'I know, Jim,' Spock said very quietly. He was silent for a moment, then asked, 'How is Peter?'

Jim shrugged. 'So-so. He's still out in the tree house. He had a good, proper cry – the first he's let me see. It's hard for him, all this change coming at once.'

'Of course,' Spock said, as if he entirely understood this reaction to catastrophic change.

'Spock, do you want to stay up here for a while, or do you feel up to a walk around?' Jim asked, anxious to get the Vulcan out of this room and distracted by other things. 'You haven't had the guided tour of the farm yet.'

'Some elements may be lost on me,' Spock said cynically, 'but there is nothing wrong with me physically, Jim, beyond the obvious. I will come for a walk.'

((O))

Outside the wind drifted lightly over the first silk of wheat in the fields, rustled the new leaves on the trees, pushed light clouds across the sky. It was so perfect it made Jim's chest hurt. The days of the past seemed to unfold for him, showing themselves in glimpses like pages being blown in the wind. There was where he had made a den with Sam and spent most of one summer, curled up out of sight with toys or books. There was the maize field where he had walked through rows of growing corn that were taller than his head, pretending to be in an alien jungle. There was the barn where he had taken Patsy Cunningham that time after school and he had got to second base before she had freaked out and run away.

He sighed, and Spock turned to him.

'Jim?' he asked.

They were walking arm in arm, like a couple, not a guide leading a blind man, and Spock appeared to be more content like that, although it was obvious to Jim that he was experiencing difficulty at times when they stepped onto uneven ground or the ground level changed suddenly.

'Oh, just memories, Spock,' Jim said with a smile. 'But hey, maybe we can make some new ones of our own.'

Spock allowed a subtle smile onto his face. 'Perhaps,' he said.

The open air seemed to be doing him good. Jim was not doing much by way of describing their surroundings, but both men were content just to walk along the field edges for their first time on a planet in a non-duty setting in months. The scent of the earth rose around them, and the more Jim concentrated on those things that Spock must be sensing the more he noticed. Grass releasing a bruised scent underfoot, the damp smell of a recent shower of rain, the distant sound of a dog barking, and closer, birds and insects so hidden in the trees that Jim could see them no better than Spock.

'I take it the funerals will be soon, according to your American customs,' Spock commented.

Those words jolted Jim back to reality.

'Yes, in a few days,' he said. 'It's already been a while and mom made a lot of the arrangements once she knew our ETA. I've told her to make it as easy on herself as she can. We'll get a caterer and have the gathering in a hall near the church. You know, I don't expect you to come, Spock. This is an entirely human thing.'

Spock stopped in mid-step. 'Jim, of course I will be there, unless you wish me to remain absent,' he said, sounding almost shocked.

Jim laughed, and the laugh almost turned into a sob. 'Hell, Spock, I never want you to be absent from me. Never at all. But I thought you might find the service illogical, and I'm sure a room full of grieving humans is going to be a strain on your shields.'

'I will be there,' Spock said firmly. 'I wish to stand at your side.'


	9. Chapter 9

[I've kind of lost track of which reviews I've replied to and which I haven't. I'm sorry. I'll try to be better.]

Later that evening they lay close to one another in bed, Jim pressed against Spock's back. His room was a little more cramped now than it had been when he was a child, due to the double bed his mother had installed as soon as it seemed likely that Jim might want to make use of it. His mother had never been prudish about sex, but she had not mentioned anything about the bed beyond saying one day, 'I suppose that bed of yours is getting tired after so long. How about I go out and get you a new one?'

Jim had agreed without much interest, but had been surprised and warmly gratified when he'd come home on vacation from the Academy to see a pleasantly wide double bed in there with restrainedly adult bedclothes. A part of his space rocket wallpaper was still there like a memorial to his childhood, preserved in one strip that ran behind the mirror, but the rest of the room was quite suited to not embarrass a boy of eighteen.

He had been through a fair share of partners since that time, but he had brought very few of them back to make use of this bed. He was glad that Spock was one of those favoured ones, hopefully the last there would be.

He nestled closer to Spock's warmth, pressing his nose against his neck, just behind the tapering ear. The room was lit with a soft glow from the bedside light, and he had installed a portable heater near the bed in deference to Spock's physiology. This room in this ancient farmhouse was even colder than the one on the ferry, otherwise.

'Warm enough?' he asked in a voice so low it barely left his chest.

'Quite,' Spock replied. He seemed far more content than he had earlier.

'I guess they're all asleep by now.'

He could feel Spock's concentration. He was reaching out with his mind, sensing the mental state of the other occupants of the house. Peter had been persuaded in from the tree house at dinner time and was now sleeping in his father's old room. Jim's mom was in her own bedroom. The house was utterly quiet.

'Yes, they are all asleep,' Spock nodded after a moment.

Jim stroked his hand down Spock's flank, letting it come to rest on the sharpness of his hip. The Vulcan was naked, as he preferred to be in bed. Jim pressed forward a little, teasing his lips over Spock's earlobe, and felt the frisson of pleasure ripple through his lover. He moved his hand a little more, curling it over Spock's hip and down into the dark curls between his legs.

An almost imperceptible tension stiffened Spock's body.

'Jim, are you sure – with your mother so close?' he asked.

'She's asleep,' Jim whispered, 'and I'm capable of discretion.'

It did not take much persuasion. Spock rolled over onto his back, letting his legs fall apart, and Jim pushed back the covers and set himself to dedicatedly touching the Vulcan's body, kissing the dark areolae about the stiffening nipples, tracing his fingers through the spidering hair over his chest, kissing ribs, flanks, the undersides of his arms, which Spock had stretched up above his head. The Vulcan seemed quite content to lie still and accept the adoration, and Jim was quite content to be the worshipper at this particular living shrine.

'Oh my god, you are beautiful,' he murmured.

He felt a brief spike of pain from Spock's mind.

'What is it, my love?' he asked, stopping with one hand spread over Spock's side, where his heart thudded slowly.

'I miss the sight of you,' Spock said simply.

Jim put a hand to the side of Spock's face, kissed his lips, kissed his lidded eyes, pressing his body up against Spock so that he could feel as much of him as possible. Spock lowered his hands then and began a delicate exploration of the human's body, a fingertip tracing of swells and valleys, of the lines of his ribs and collarbones, his shoulder blades and neck, the shell curve of his ears, the soft hair of his head, and then the shape of his cheekbones, orbits, the broad forehead, the firm chin and full lips.

'Oh, Jim, I miss the sight of this,' Spock said again, putting his hand behind Jim's head and turning it so that he could kiss him. Jim's mouth fell open and Spock's tongue slipped in to the warm space, touching his teeth, meeting with Jim's own tongue. Through Spock's fingertips, pressed against Jim's scalp, Jim could feel the flames of desire and regret intermingling with a flood of memories. Spock had perfect recall and could conjure up the sight of Jim's body any time he liked, but it was a vision of the past, not of this moment. He would never know the changes wrought by time, and every second widened the gap between memory and reality.

A kind of hard and determined anger flamed in the Vulcan, and Jim felt it like a jolt through the mind touch. Spock pushed him flat to the mattress, thrust aside the irritating coverings, straddled him and let his tumescent member press against Jim's own hardening rod. His closed one fist around them both, pumping briefly, and Jim gasped in his throat at the exquisite feeling of Spock's Vulcan heat against his own cooler organ.

More roughly now, Spock bent forward, attacking the human with kisses that almost became bites, his hands hard and fumbling, searching desperately over Jim's body as if desperate to feel every inch of him. The hands moved down to stroke his yearning erection again, to cradle and gently squeeze the balls in their cool ridged sack, and then slipping lower still to massage the perineum, and finally to touch the puckered opening below. Jim gasped again, stuffed a hand in his mouth to stifle the noise, closed his eyes and willed control. He had not seen this angry, desperate Spock yet in their short relationship, and it aroused him terribly.

Suddenly he recalled a moment in their shared room on 1930s Earth, a thousand miles away from here in distance and hundreds of years in time.

_The radio tubes and values had been carefully set on the floor so there was barely space to step. Spock had obviously made Jim's bed ready for him, but Jim had not come home until dawn. He had been upstairs with Edith. They had done nothing but sit__in her room and talk and talk until the dawn sun rose in the east. Edith talked as if her mind were on fire, alight with possibilities and hopes and joy in the power of humanity, and her fire kept Jim alight. He revelled in her mind almost more than her body. There was so much potential there, and the thought that she_ must _die was a constant pain that he kept hidden deep in his chest. She asked him occasionally why he was melancholy, and he brushed it off with mentions of the Depression, or being tired after work. But that night he had not felt tired at all. He had been kept buzzing by the sheer force of her enthusiasm._

_As the first golden rays of sunlight had struck the wall through the crack in the curtains, Edith had gasped and then laughed with pure joy._

'_Look, Jim, we stayed awake all night,' she exclaimed, and there was a childish glee in her voice._

'_So we did,' he realised. Although he was tired, her joy was infectious. 'But look, I'd better get out of here,' he said quickly. 'People will talk, and I don't want people talking about you. Get a couple hours sleep before you have to get up, hey?'_

_He had left her in her room, starry-eyed and so awake he was certain she wouldn't even think of sleeping. Perhaps he could get a few hours himself, though. He had tiptoed downstairs, grateful for the emptiness of the halls, and pressed open the door to his and Spock's room. Spock was deep in sleep in his own bed, and Jim's bed was there on the other side of the room, the grey covers flat and folded in at the corners with a military precision. He had smiled at that small evidence of Spock's diligence. Spock was working harder than any of them, labouring by day and spending every other minute on the construction of his mnemonic memory circuit. If he had been human the stress on him would have been unbearable._

_But there was a sliver of humanity in Spock, and one of the ways it manifested itself was in his body's occasional betrayal of all the mind disciplines and controls. He could see by the bulge midway down the bed under the layers of blankets that Spock's human side was asserting itself now. Hardly knowing why, Jim sat down on the edge of his own bed and watched the Vulcan, just watched him. Spock's eyes were closed but he was not entirely relaxed. He was evidently dreaming. His head moved just a little, side to side, and then abruptly he smiled. Jim smiled too, caught by that incredible, open expression of joy which was so rarely seen in the Vulcan. The smile broadened, and then there was a laugh, and Spock's whole body stirred, moving his tumescent organ against the confining blankets. The Vulcan let out a gasp of what sounded like pleasure, and Jim felt it like a moment of déjà vu, a ripple of pleasure in his own mind. In his sleep, Spock was projecting his thoughts._

_Jim just sat and stared at him, his eyes moving between Spock's face and that swelling beneath the blankets, and found himself becoming unaccountably aroused. He never would have pressed Edith to do something beyond her morals, but he could not deny that he felt extremely sexually frustrated. He felt he loved Edith with every particle of his being, and in another time they would have cast all prudity__aside. And now here was Spock, his dear, dear friend, obviously engaged in some kind of sexual dream, and suddenly something lit inside him that he had never suspected before. It was a yearning, a desire, not just for Edith, but also for Spock, for the beauty of him, the perfection of him, the unbending loyalty of him. What had Edith said about Spock? That he belonged at Jim's side, as if he had always been there and always will. _Always_. Always was a long time, but he could believe it of Spock. There was no always for Edith. In Jim's life she was a mayfly, sparking bright and then doomed to leave. But Spock... Spock was constant. Spock was always there._

_In his sleep Spock writhed and reached a hand down under the covers to his yearning organ. His lips parted as he touched it, as he moved his fingers around it and murmured, 'Jim...'_

When Spock had awoken some hours later on that crisp New York morning he had shown signs of the same burning determination that he was now. Jim didn't know precisely what it was that had occurred in the Vulcan's erotic dream, but something was propelling him with anger and fire to complete his work, to right the mistakes of time, to get both him and his captain back to their proper places. There was a desperation and a loneliness in the Vulcan that Jim had barely seen before. If it hadn't been for Edith, if it hadn't been that neither of them had yet confessed the feelings that Jim knew now they were both feeling, perhaps they would have ended up in the situation of having desperate, no-holds-barred sex in that mean single room of theirs.

Now Spock was the same, desperate and hungry and unbearably alone, reaching out with urgency to try to bridge the gap, to join himself with his lover, to find some kind of place where he could be content. Jim lay back and let him. Spock reached out blindly, his hand waving towards the bedside cabinet, which lay at least twelve inches from his grasp. Jim knew what he was looking for and retrieved the small bottle of oil that he always made sure to keep handy, and pressed it into Spock's hand.

Spock opened the lid with a soft pop and drizzled oil into his hand. He reached down and let it trickle down between Jim's legs, not bothering to warm it in his palm as was his custom. Jim gasped and writhed a little, and Spock followed the trail of oil with his hand, finding that tight pucker again, circling it with a finger and then pushing one, two, three digits through the muscular ring. Jim gasped again, arching up, and Spock gave a low rumble of satisfaction in his chest. He did not pause for much foreplay, but took his own yearning erection in his hand and placed the tip against Jim's opening. With the other he took Jim's own organ and stroked it, pumped it, as he pressed forward through the initial resistance of Jim's muscle and then slipped deep into his body. He let out a low sigh of pleasure, and began to set up a rhythm, forgetting to pleasure Jim with his hand now, pressing their bodies together and letting his belly glide instead against the captain's erection. The sensation inside him and the sensation without of Spock's body pressed against his was enough, and Jim threw his head back, his mouth open, willing himself to remain quiet for the sake of the others in the house.

Spock's face was set, his lips pressed together, the muscles of his arms straining as he held himself a little above Jim's chest as he thrust and thrust again. He was entirely abstracted, focussing on nothing but his own pleasure and unwittingly bringing Jim to the edge in his fervour. Jim pushed his fist into his mouth. As the hot, soft-hard organ glided against his prostate he wanted to scream aloud. Spock continued to push rhythmically into his lover's body, and then he took the weight off his arms, lay full on Jim's chest, touched his fingertips either side of Jim's head.

As they entered full meld Jim lost all control. He could not have stopped himself screaming, but Spock was there, still with enough discipline to keep himself and his lover quiet. The meld was wordless, thoughtless almost. It was a blaze of fire, of pleasure twined, twinned and multiplied and writhing in their minds. Gold and scarlet burst and erupted in Jim's head, creating an almost unbearable heat. He was barely aware of the physical sensations of his body. It was as if the entire world was pleasure, and bodies, senses, sight, sound, touch, meant nothing any more.

There was a crescendo, and dimly he was aware of Spock's control pressing against his vocal chords, keeping his cry to nothing more than a whimper as Spock's seed jetted into his body and his own erupted between their bellies.

Spock's body lost all tension and collapsed against him. They lay like that for a long time, Spock's arms pressed against Jim's sides and Jim's reached up about Spock's back to hold him still. Spock was panting, his breath coming in quick rasps and billowing out hot against Jim's face. He could feel tears on the Vulcan's cheek. Jim held him like a child, shushing him gently, stroking his hands against Spock's back. After a time he gently rolled Spock off him and went to the bathroom to clean up, coming back with a warm cloth so that he could clean his lover without requiring him to leave the warmth of the room. Then he curled up against Spock's side again, and prepared to drift into sleep.

A cry broke the deep silence of the night, and Jim jerked upright.

'Pete,' he said instantly, groping around for a dressing gown and pyjama bottoms.

Spock was upright too, his ear turned towards the wailing noise.

'I'd better go before he wakes mom,' Jim said.

Jim walked through the darkened house, taking the path to Sam's room on instinct. He had walked down the landing in the dark like this plenty of times before, but it had always been to sit at the end of Sam's bed, sharing his coverings, their bare feet touching, so they could talk so quietly mom didn't hear, or read, or both bend their necks to see a vid on Sam's padd that mom would be sure to forbid if she knew they were watching.

The memories were so strong that when he opened the door he almost expected to see Sam in there, chequered pyjamas, hair ruffled, a grin on his face. But it was Peter in there, sitting up and clutching the covers to his chest, with tears streaming down his face.

'Hey, Petey,' he said softly, treading across the room to him. 'What was it? Nightmare?'

The boy nodded wordlessly. His lips were pressed together so hard that they were pale. His eyes were red.

Jim sat down next to him and put his arm around him. He realised then that Pete was wearing an old pair of Sam's pyjamas. They even smelt like him. The grief welled up in his chest so hard that it felt like a tumour swelling in his throat, and he could not stop it. His throat physically hurt and his eyes stung with tears. He held Peter hard, rocking him, waiting until he felt able to speak without letting out the weeping that wanted to come.

'Do you want to talk about it?' Jim asked eventually.

Peter shook his head emphatically, but Jim could imagine he had plenty of scope for nightmares; those freakish creatures that some had described as jello on pancakes; the feeling of their tendrils in his body, exerting a screaming pain from every nerve; the sight of his parents struck down by the same agony, friends and neighbours going mad and dying or turning into zombies with no volition but what the creatures asked of them. McCoy had speculated that Peter hadn't been infected for as long as his parents. Children were of less use to the parasites, and if he had been infected longer it was likely he would not have survived. He must have seen his mother and father both in unbearable agony, both driven to actions they despised but could not resist. He would have expected Pete to have nightmares if his parents had been killed in a quick, clean shuttle accident, but as it was it was more than inevitable.

'Do you feel like you can get back to sleep?' he asked.

Peter shook his head again.

Jim squeezed his arm around his shoulders. 'Come on, small fry,' he said affectionately. 'Come with me.'

Wonderingly, Peter got out of bed. 'Where are we going?' he asked.

'I don't know yet,' Jim said. 'Where's your coat?'

'Downstairs, I think. Grandma put it away.'

Jim kissed him absently on the top of the head, and walked with him downstairs to find his coat.

'Got shoes?' he asked.

'Yeah, here,' Peter said, nodding towards the stack of shoes under the coats in the cupboard.

'Good,' Jim said, slipping his feet into his boots. He allowed himself a brief internal chuckle at what his crew would think if they saw him walking around in Starfleet issue boots, a dressing gown, and pyjama bottoms.

He opened the door very quietly, and took Peter outside. The light from the hall spilled out through the glass in the front door. Beyond that at first the darkness was complete, velvet, pressed down over everything. He walked forward with his arm about Peter's shoulders across the grass of the front yard, around the edge of the house, towards the small stand of trees where the tree house was built. By the time they had passed through the trees their eyes had adjusted and the world was a lot more distinct, presenting itself in muted black and grey shades. They walked to the edge of the first field and Jim crouched down. After a moment Peter did too, and before long they were both sitting on the soft earth.

'Look,' Jim said, pointing out at the flatness of the wheat field. There were shapes out there, moving close to the ground.

'What's that?' Peter asked.

'Jackrabbits,' Jim said. 'The little ba – ahem – the little terrors want to eat the crops, but it's good to see them. Was a time there were hardly any left in this country. I guess you've never seen a jackrabbit, huh?'

'I can't see them now,' Peter said with a hint of a laugh that Jim was glad to hear. 'We had rabbits on Deneva but I don't think they were much like Earth ones.'

'Really?' Jim asked, intrigued. 'What were they like?'

'About this big,' Pete said, describing a size with his hands that Jim couldn't see in the dark. 'They were gold and real fluffy, like an overinflated pompom, dad said. Nothing like an Earth rabbit, he said, but they had long ears and ate grass, so they called them rabbits.'

Jim thought that was the longest he had heard Peter talk for since he had awoken in sick bay. 'Well, these aren't gold and fluffy,' he said. 'Maybe tomorrow I'll show you some pictures or vids of the animals round here. Would you like that?'

Peter nodded.

A long wavering hoot sounded.

'What's that?' Peter asked instantly. For a moment Jim was astonished. Deneva was so Earth-like that he forgot that its entire flora and fauna were utterly alien.

'That's an owl, Pete,' he said. 'Lovely birds. Really beautiful. And that – ' he said as another call sounded out, 'that's a nightjar.'

'There weren't animals like that at home,' Peter said.

Jim smiled. 'Maybe there were,' he said, 'but you probably wouldn't see many in the city.'

He shook his head. 'No, mom said there weren't any – any – nighturnal – ?'

'Nocturnal,' Jim corrected him softly. 'Really?' he asked, astonished. 'Deneva has no nocturnal creatures? I never knew that.'

Peter shrugged. 'Mom said so.'

'Well, then, it must be true,' Jim smiled.

They sat in silence for a little while longer. The urge to sleep was burning in Jim's eyes and he yawned expansively. Peter had moved closer to him, and was becoming almost limp against his side.

'Ready for bed, Petey?' he asked.

The boy was silent for a moment, and then he nodded.

'I'll tell your grandmother to let you sleep in,' Jim promised. They stood up, and he kissed his nephew on the top of the head. 'I love you, Petey,' he said, and for the first time since their reunion at Deneva he really meant it. He felt he knew the boy now in a way that he never had before.

'I love you too, Uncle Jim,' Peter said, and Jim felt that he meant it, too.


	10. Chapter 10

The morning of the funerals came with what Jim described as clear skies and hot sun. The sun did not feel hot to Spock, but he was not going to quibble on today of all days. He stayed at Jim's side, as he had promised, but he felt distinctly out of place as they prepared for this most human of ceremonies. It would be nothing like a Vulcan funeral. Spock tried to think of human metaphors that Jim might employ for his situation. Wallflower? Third wheel? He could not be certain what was appropriate, but in non-metaphoric terms he was on the outside, a guest who could not grieve, a person who should be offering help, but instead was forced to accept it.

'Jim, are you certain it would not be better were I to remain at the house?' he asked as he walked with the captain toward the front door. The air cars were outside, waiting to take the Kirk family to the church.

'I am absolutely certain,' Jim replied. There was something odd to his voice, a strange, constrained sound as if he were afraid he was going to cry. 'Spock, I _need_ you,' he continued, very low. 'I need you with me. Can you understand that?'

'Of course, t'hy'la,' he responded in an equally quiet voice, although he could not say he understood entirely. He was surely only going to be a burden at this difficult time. A hot spike of frustration rose in him, and he fought to quell it. He had been so effectively removed from use by this dark veil over his sight. Here he was holding onto Jim's arm, having to be led everywhere. He could not help fetch or carry, he could not effectively greet or direct mourners, he could not help to carry the coffins. His only purpose was to hold Jim's arm, and distract the human from his own duties.

'Steps out of the house,' Jim murmured as they walked onto the porch, pausing at the top of the flight so that Spock could feel for the first one with his foot. He recalled the steps very clearly, but Jim was so assiduous in alerting him to such things that he did not want to discourage him.

They walked across the grass to the barely perceptible hum of the air cars, which were waiting outside. Spock knew from Jim's description that they were sleek, black as in Earth-western tradition, and would travel far slower than their optimum speed to fulfil a perceived need for respect for the dead. There were two hearse cars and one for the family behind. It was this car that they approached, and Jim carefully guided Spock up into the wide seats, which felt as if they were upholstered with leather or a leather substitute. He moved over as far as possible so that the three humans could get in, and felt for the seat belt.

'Here, let me help you,' Jim said, and his hands touched Spock's, cool and reassuring. He reached across the Vulcan's body and strapped him in. 'Not that we'll need them at these speeds, but – '

'Safety is always desirable,' Spock finished for him. 'Jim, am I correct in thinking we will be meeting Peter's brothers at the church?'

'Yes,' Jim nodded quietly. 'They got in a few hours ago, I think. They'll be staying at the house tonight. Aurelan's father's going to stay in a hotel, though. He's quite infirm, by all accounts.'

At that point the air car rocked again, and Spock was aware of Peter and Mrs Kirk getting into their seats. He had gained the sense that Peter had been somewhat reluctant to come to the funeral, but Jim had thought it best that his grandmother persuade him gently. Evidently her persuasion had worked, because Peter was getting into the car without argument.

The car started off slowly and gently, reinforcing Kirk's suggestion that the belts were hardly necessary.

'It's about ten minutes to the church,' Jim said. 'It's an old red brick place, must be at least three hundred years old. I always loved it when the sun hit it just right. It glowed, you know.'

Spock nodded, remembering that burnished glow that bricks took on in the right angle of Earth sunshine.

'I did not know that your family was religious, Jim,' he murmured.

'Oh, well, we're not, not really, but – weddings, funerals, you know how it is...'

Spock nodded, but internally he was perplexed. He did not understand the logic of clinging to a faith for key events in life when the beliefs espoused by that faith were shunned the rest of the time. Surely it was better to make the break entirely and live according to one's own principles all the time? In the past the church had opposed same-sex relationships such as his and Jim's. In the nearer future it had opposed unions between sentient people of different worlds.

'And Aurelan's family?' he asked.

He felt Jim shrug. 'I don't know. It said in her will that they were to be buried together, preferably here. I'm sorry to say I never got to know Aurelan that well. Just a few Christmases and birthdays, you know.'

Spock nodded. It sounded as if Jim's relationship with Aurelan was much like his relationship with the church, something which only materialised on special occasions. Spock settled back in his seat, closed his eyes, and set himself to cogitating this matter. The sun through the window of the air car was magnified and pleasantly warm on the side of his face, and the quiet hum of the engines was conducive to thought.

It was not, he thought, that either the church or Aurelan were unimportant to Jim. He recalled the captain's manner with her in those brief moments when she had been conscious before her death. He had seemed familiar, concerned, even tender. He had shown appropriate grief after her death, although not at the level he had shown for his brother. Perhaps it was that both of these things, sister-in-law and church, were there in the background, always expected to be around. He called upon them at important times. Spock wondered in a brief flight of fantasy what it would be like if he and Jim decided on a human marriage. Would they both stand in the red brick church that Jim had described and be united under a god that Jim barely believed in and Spock was certain did not exist except in the minds of the faithful?

He quenched that thought immediately as he opened his eyes to the constant, blanketing blackness. How could he ever commit to a permanent relationship with such uncertainty hanging over his future? He clenched his fists unobtrusively at his sides.

Suddenly, with the plummeting of his own mental state, he became painfully aware of the emotional fog within the air car. The driver, a person he could not see and had not even heard speak, was serene, but in the back of the car emotions were spreading in a dense miasma. He could feel Jim's most strongly because of the bond, but he was aware of Peter's grief, sharp and angry and lost, and Mrs Kirk's, a more muted, tired, bone-deep grief that was so strong it made Spock's temples ache. The church would be even harder. He did not know how many people would be at the service, but an entire room full of grief-stricken humans would be almost unbearable. He was torn between strengthening his mental shields and keeping them relaxed. He would need some kind of protection against all of that emotionalism, but he also wanted to be available to Jim, and in his blind state he found it much easier to sense his surroundings if he kept a certain openness to the minds around him.

'We're here, Spock,' Jim said, and Spock jerked out of his reverie. 'You'll be okay with mom?'

Jim had already explained to Spock that he was to be one of the coffin bearers. Spock had crushed his regret at not being able to join his bondmate in carrying his brother, but he did not trust himself, even with the obligatory anti-gravs to take the weight and the guidance of the other bearers around him.

'I will be quite fine,' he assured Jim. He wished that his partner would not fuss over him quite so much, but he was not sure how to address the issue without causing upset or offence. It was hard not to feel broken when he was treated as if he were. This was certainly not the time to speak of it, though. He could feel Jim's grief like a pall.

He slid out of the car and onto what felt like gravelled ground. Mrs Kirk was crying very quietly, but she took hold of his arm, and he found he could not bring himself to correct the grip and ask her to let him take her arm instead. He could hear many other people around. There was quiet talking, some crying, and occasionally, and rather startlingly, a soft laugh. He had been right about the miasma of emotion, though. It was almost unbearable, and he shut down his shields resolutely despite the fact that it made him feel twice as blind.

'Let's go inside, dear,' Mrs Kirk said, patting Spock's hand lightly. Then she said, 'Oh, look, Petey, there are your brothers on their way in. Do you want to – '

Spock did not hear Peter reply, but he heard his running footsteps as he raced to catch up with his older brothers. He walked with Mrs Kirk across the gravel, and then stumbled and fell hard to his knees as his feet hit into something solid.

'Oh, my gosh, I am so sorry, I am so sorry, Spock,' Mrs Kirk told him, actually starting to cry aloud now. 'There are steps. I didn't think. I'm sorry.'

Spock was struck with a moment of strange anger that he was the one who had slammed into the ground, whose knees and palms were stinging, while Jim's mother wept, but he pushed the feeling aside. It was irrational, completely irrational. Mrs Kirk had every right to cry, and it was his place to comfort her.

He regained his footing with alacrity. His knees had struck the sharp edge of one of the steps so hard that he feared he might be bleeding, but this was no time to check. He brushed his hand briefly over the fabric of his trousers to be sure there was no hole. At least he had not hit his head.

'Let me take your arm, Winona,' he said quietly. 'That is the best method.'

'Of course, I'm so sorry,' she said again, putting her hand over his.

There was nothing more to say, so Spock remained silent, walking painfully up the steps a little behind her until she said, 'This is the top,' and the ground levelled out. They passed out of the warm sunshine into a cooler space that echoed with the noise of people's feet and quiet chatter. It sounded like a place of flat, bare walls, and he followed Jim's mother until she helped him into a pew, and they both sat down.

His knees throbbed, and he was rather more focussed on that than what was going on around him. Then he noticed Jim's presence as his partner slipped in beside him and sat down. The degree of relief he felt at being reunited with him was quite improper, and he felt that odd feeling of ambivalence again over Jim's closeness to him. Was it useful to feel such a dependence on another person? Surely he needed to have the confidence to be apart from him, just as he always had until a week ago?

Jim bumped lightly against his shoulder, and Spock reached out to touch his hand. He felt Jim's grief again through the touch, and tried to shut down his shields against the worst of it. As someone, the preacher, he supposed, started speaking, he surreptitiously touched his fingertips to his right knee, which was the most painful, and felt dampness through the cloth. He rubbed his fingertips together and then brought them to his nose to sniff them delicately. There was the scent of blood on them.

'Spock?' Kirk murmured in an undertone, taking hold of his hand. 'Is that blood?'

Spock did not reply, not wanting to interrupt the sermon. Instead he moved his hand so his fingertips were touching Jim's and let his mind open, letting Jim see the moment when he had stumbled on the steps outside. Jim's concern welled up, taking him away from thoughts of the service for now, and Spock felt the human's free hand touching gently at his knees. Both were bleeding, it seemed.

_We'll go get you some medical attention afterwards. Can you wait until afterwards?_ Jim asked in his mind.

_Affirmative_, Spock thought. He had no intention of disrupting the service for such a minor matter.

He sat quietly through the service, standing when required, although he declined to sing since the hymns were unfamiliar and he could not read the words printed on the rustling paper that Jim held. When the service was finally over he found it a relief to get outside into the open air, where at least the emotions of all the humans present were more dissipated.

'Look, Spock, I think we should go to a pharmacy to get something for your knees,' Jim said to him quietly. 'I'll send mom and Pete on to the wake and we can catch up with them there. We can get a cab.'

'Very well, Jim,' Spock agreed. He knew he needed to do something to clean and cover the wounds. It was always advisable to eliminate bacteria from wounds gained on a foreign planet. Earth was not strictly foreign to him and he shared half of his genetic heritage with its people, but regardless, he had grown up on Vulcan, exposed to Vulcan bacteria and viruses, not Earth ones.

He succumbed quietly to the pharmacist's advice and allowed Jim to carefully clean and cover the wounds, but he declined a painkiller, and got back into the cab to go to the wake as originally planned.

'Look, I'm really sorry about this,' Jim said to him as they sat in the cab.

'It was not your fault, and your mother has already apologised,' Spock said quietly. 'It was not strictly her fault either. I did not correct her when she guided me incorrectly.'

'I know,' Jim murmured. 'But I'm still sorry.'

Spock felt frustration well again. 'Jim, it is nothing more than split skin and bruises. I have suffered far worse in the past. The fact that I cannot see does not magically magnify my injuries.'

Jim was silent for a moment, and Spock regretted his tone, afraid that he had upset his bondmate on a day which was already quite gruelling enough for him.

'No, I know, I know,' Jim said eventually. 'I need to stop treating you with kid gloves. I know that, Spock. This is a learning process for me too...'

'We will be in San Francisco soon, and I will start to learn the requisite skills for independence,' Spock said. 'I think that will be to the benefit of both of us. Neither of us are used to such a situation. I have been utterly dependent upon you.'

To his consternation Jim suddenly began to weep. Spock had felt a certain building of tension but he had not expected this. He sat still for a moment, constrained by the seat belt and the space between them, but then he leant forward and tapped on the glass panel which separated them from the driver.

'Is it safe to let us out here?' he asked.

There was a small hesitation, then the driver said, 'Look, we're a block away from the park. How about I drop you there?'

'That will be satisfactory,' Spock said.

When the cab stopped Spock got out first, listening carefully to be sure he was not in the path of traffic. He thought he was on the sidewalk. Jim stumbled out after him, and Spock heard him arranging payment with the driver.

'God, I'm sorry, Spock,' Jim said, coming to him as the cab pulled away. 'I'm so sorry.'

'I have heard those words frequently today when there is little need for them to be said,' Spock pointed out. 'Jim, I wish to comfort you but I will need your guidance to find a suitable place.'

'Yes, of course,' Jim murmured, letting Spock take his arm. Spock could feel that the first fierceness of grief had left him somewhat and he was no longer crying audibly. 'I'm sorry, Spock. I don't know what that was all about...'

'You are grieving,' Spock reminded him in a level voice, 'and you are doing so in a very human way. You have lost so much recently.'

'Edith, Sam, Aurelan – and the _Enterprise_,' Jim said.

'Jim, you have not lost the _Enterprise_,' Spock reminded him.

'Not permanently, but – I don't know, Spock. She's _my_ ship. I hate to be away from her...'

Spock stopped walking for a moment. 'Need I remind you that you do not have to be here on Earth for me?'

'Dammit, Spock!' Jim snapped, suddenly angry. 'I _do_. I do need to be here for you. The ship needs me but you need me more.'

'I regret being the cause of such distress,' Spock said in a level voice, but he felt more hurt at Jim's words than he showed. He noticed abstractedly that they were now walking along what felt like a gravel path, and he could hear trees and smell grass. They must have turned into the park.

'Spock – Spock, I don't mean it like that,' Jim protested. 'I really don't. I _want_ to be here for you. There's just – so _much_ at the moment. So much to think of. Sometimes I feel like – like I'm walking on solid ground and I take a step and there's nothing. Vacuum of space underfoot, freefall to planetside, and that's him gone – Sam gone, Edith gone – the space that they left. Do you – do you understand that, Spock? Am I making any sense?'

Spock's brow furrowed minutely. 'I do not precisely experience grief in metaphors, but I understand, Jim.'

'How _do _you experience grief?' Jim asked curiously.

The frown deepened. 'A void. A loss. Perhaps you are right, Jim.'

'You've lost a lot too, Spock. One thing, I know – but there's so much that goes with it.'

Jim stopped and turned to his lover, and for a moment they embraced, Jim's hands firm on Spock's back, his arms warm around him.

'We need to get on to San Francisco,' Kirk said determinedly, letting the Vulcan take his arm again. 'I need to be working and you need to get that rehabilitation under your belt.'

'We also need to get to the wake,' Spock reminded him practically.

'Well, we're only a couple of blocks away from here, Spock. We can walk it, if your knees are all right?'

'I am quite capable of walking,' Spock promised.

'Are you capable of talking with fifteen different layers of the Kirk family, various relatives of Aurelan's, and sundry friends?' Jim asked with a soft laugh.

'I'm sure I will not let you down,' Spock reassured him. 'I have endured enough diplomatic functions on the _Enterprise _to be able to make conversation with a considerable variety of sentient humanoids.'

Jim sighed. 'You know, what I'd really like is just to sit down on that bench there in the sun and just talk to you, talk the day away. No more people, no more putting on a front. Just – nothing but you and me and the sky.'

'I do find the sky rather cold,' Spock pointed out, and Jim laughed.

'Well, in that case, my dear hot-blooded Vulcan, I'd better get you inside – and maybe you can use your influence to keep me from any more embarrassing breakdowns. It doesn't do my reputation as a starship captain any good at all.'

Spock continued walking with his hand loosely around Jim's arm, gratified that he seemed to have recovered from his momentary breakdown, but concerned nonetheless. Jim had been under a tremendous amount of strain recently, and it was bound to be damaging to his fragile human mind. Perhaps once they were installed in San Francisco he could persuade him to take counselling, just to be certain that he didn't turn in on himself and precipitate a further breakdown. Meanwhile, he would have to address his own problems with meditation and strict mental discipline. He was finding his thoughts turning to a darker direction far too often recently. No matter how much he repeated _kaiidth_ within his own mind it was increasingly difficult to accept that what was, was. He wanted to fight against the darkness, to lash out against it, to turn away from life in his utter frustration. He could not allow that to continue.


	11. Chapter 11

Spock woke in the cool of morning, cosseted by the covers around him. It had been two days since the funerals and a large amount of the tension had left the house, as if it has been laid to rest with the bodies. That was not to say there was no grief. Spock could still feel that thick in the air, especially since Peter's older brothers were both staying on for a while, but there was a less brittle feeling to it now. Perhaps the mourners were starting to move on.

Spock desired greatly to move on too. He and Jim were not scheduled to be in San Francisco for another week, and his course did not start until ten days from now. Still, Spock wanted to move on, to be on his own with Jim, to be actively moving towards some kind of resolution for his situation. He wanted independence again, to regain his own person.

He got up out of the bed very quietly, determined not to wake Jim. Jim had been permanently on duty as a carer for weeks now. It would do him good to sleep in.

He dressed in the clothes that Jim had diligently left out for him the night before, and walked with great care out of the bedroom. It appeared that everyone else was asleep. There was no sound from the rest of the house and he could sense no wakeful minds.

The board floor and its rugs were soft under his feet. He walked quietly to the stairs, his hand held out in front of him and feeling carefully until he found first the corner of the wall into the stairwell, and then the wooden rail that ran down the side. He went downstairs and over to the cupboard in the hall where all of the shoes were kept. Here things became a little more difficult. There were shoes belonging to Jim, shoes for Peter, for Winona Kirk, and adult male sized shoes for Peter's older brothers too. He could feel them all lined up on the shelves in there, and he had no idea where his might be because he had not put them away. He knelt down and began to feel over the different pairs until he had narrowed it down to three. Then he began a fingertip search, and eventually picked up one pair and delicately sniffed. These were his, he was sure.

He carefully pulled on the boots, just as carefully folding down and pushing away the frustration that had risen on having to waste so much time just finding footwear that he previously would have identified with one glance. He had next to feel amongst the coats hanging up to find his. It was chilly in the house, and it would be colder outside. He judged the time to be about seven a.m.

Jim would be worried, he knew, but he also knew that if he suggested going outside alone that the captain would quickly find ten different reasons why he should not. He wanted the chance to be outside alone, and he did not want to have to argue for that right.

As he moved towards the door, reaching out, his hand clattered into what seemed to be a stand of sticks and umbrellas. At the last moment he decided to take out one of the lightweight walking poles. He knew that the blind often used canes, and this would serve a similar purpose. He had received no training, but he understood the principles, and it could not be hard to use a stick.

The door was bolted and locked, but the key, an old-fashioned metal thing that one had to turn, had been left in the lock. As he passed his hands over the door he felt the cold smoothness of a pane of glass. Was it clear or perhaps frosted or coloured as he had seen before on Earth? He would have to ask Jim. There was no _need_ to know, but there was a want.

The door open, Spock stepped out onto the boarding about the house, and then froze.

How could this feel so strange? He stood very still, the stick in one hand, listening. He could hear birds in the distance. Perhaps that meant it was light, but he could see no light. There was no difference to his eyes between being inside the shaded house and standing out in what could be the full light of day. He turned his head slowly, trying to feel any change in warmth, but there was nothing. If the sun was up, perhaps it was too early to be able to feel its warmth, or perhaps it was hidden behind clouds.

He could remember precisely what it had been like here on his few trips from the house, but his knowledge was narrowed down, a restricted path that existed only where his feet had trod. There were four steps down from this wooden veranda, and then some kind of path which gave way to grass on either side. The path, he thought, was not paved or gravelled but simply trodden earth which sometimes was re-colonised by grass. There were trees over to the right. To the left was where the air cars had waited to take them to the funeral, and also where they had been returned later that day by taxi.

He pushed the stick out ahead cautiously, and it touched the edge of the veranda just where he remembered the steps to be. He navigated the steps carefully, and found himself on the earth path. He was aware of the bulk of the house behind him, and the openness of the land before him. He had no real objective. He simply wanted to know if he were capable of being alone, of going somewhere without constantly touching another person's arm.

He began to walk, trying to keep his pace relatively normal. He did not want to shuffle across the ground. He held the stick in front of him, occasionally tapping the end onto the ground but mostly just holding it as if in defence against solid that might be in his way. At some point he lost the path and did not regain it.

The stick clattered into something solid, and he stopped, reaching out tentatively. It felt like a fence made of wood. He supposed it would be likely that the Kirks would have a fence around the yard. Presumably there would be a gate, but was it to the left of where he stood, or the right? There seemed little way to tell except by feeling his way along. But really, did he wish to stand in the yard feeling his way along a fence just to prove to himself that he could be independent?

It was that or return to the house. He considered the position of the house behind him and its relation to the angle of the fence. The gate was most likely to be to the right, according to logic, and humans often followed a most conventional form of logic when it came to the outsides of their homes. He turned right accordingly, and after a few metres was rewarded by the introduction of a thicker post, and then what felt like a gate. He opened it and stepped through.

What would be here? Was this still the Kirks' land or was there a public highway out here? He felt with the stick, tapping the end onto the ground. Trodden earth again, dry and hard. He walked forward until the earth broke up, rose a little, and was replaced with the hardness of some kind of metalled road surface. Now, this would be the test. He stood very still, taking in what was around him. The light sound of wind in the trees behind him. The occasional creak of some part of the house. That would be useful. Sounds of birds and animals. It all built up a picture. He needed to be able to recognise this place for his return.

He turned right, and set out along the road, walking slowly and carefully, holding the stick before him. The surface was smooth and hard under his feet and easy to walk on, but after a time he stumbled as it dropped away under his left foot and jarred his ankle.

He caught himself, and stood still for a moment, suppressing the pain in the tendon and assessing what had happened. Evidently, thinking he was walking in a straight line, he had wandered across the road and slipped off the edge. The road was raised about ten inches above the level of the land. He touched his fingers to the ground and felt hard crumbling earth, perhaps the edge of a field. He would have to be more careful. He walked back to the other side of the road, about six paces, and this time he touched the end of the walking pole to the ground, making sure as he carried on along his route that he kept checking for the side of the road with the end of the pole. The light tapping noise was one of the few sounds in this vast space.

The road continued straight and level. At one point he heard the low murmur of a vehicle which crept up on him slowly and then passed, causing a small billow of wind, before fading into the distance ahead of him. This was most probably a public road, then.

After some time he stopped walking. He had proven that he could leave the house alone and make progress outside – but progress to what end? Where was he? What had he really achieved? Perhaps a truer test would have been calling a cab and visiting the local town, perhaps visiting a shop or a cafe. But that, he knew, was something far beyond his skills at the moment, and that thought weighed on him heavily. He could walk along a road, that was true, but that was so far from a reappropriation of normal life that had he been human he would have laughed.

Suddenly he felt very far from home, if he could call Jim's farm home. As he stood still in this black wilderness he grew aware of how very helpless he was. He could turn around and walk back along the road, and he knew approximately how far he should need to walk to get back to the house, but what skill was that? What was to his right and left? What possible chance for improvement could there be?

Something approaching fury and bitter resentment welled up in him, and he was not sure he had the will to calm it and push it away. How could his life have descended to this point, where he was walking along a level highway at the pace of a toddler and calling it an achievement? What possible future could he even consider having in Starfleet? What future did he have with Jim as his nursemaid? Perhaps it would be most logical to just continue walking along this road until he found a town with a public comm system and to arrange passage back to Vulcan and his parents' home, and cut every tie with his previous, active, vital life. He could perhaps eventually go to Gol, rid himself of this destructive pall of emotions.

He sank down on the side of the road, holding the stick loosely between his hands, caught and cast down in this sudden mire of emotion. The idea of walking to the next town was ridiculous. This was big, open country. He might walk for miles. When he did find a town, how would he use the comm system? He was incapable of the most basic of tasks. Without Jim's help he could not even be sure that his clothing was clean and matched.

He pressed his hands over his face, trying desperately to control these surges of negative emotion. There was little logic to these feelings. He knew that despite his feeling them. This was the voice of depression insinuating itself inside his mind.

'Uncle Spock? Uncle Spock!'

His head jerked up. He had been so enmeshed in his own emotions that he had not even heard the boy approach, but there was only one person who would call him that. Jim had suggested it, over Spock's objections.

'Peter?' he asked.

The boy's footsteps sped up, thudding hard against the road surface. He was running, his breath coming in short pants as he got closer. When he was a few feet away, he stopped.

'Uncle Spock, are you all right? I saw you go out of the house...'

Spock straightened up, trying to compose himself. 'You followed me?'

'Not right away, but I came down and you weren't in the house and I saw your shoes were gone so I got worried...'

Spock raised an eyebrow.

'How did you know which way I had gone?' he asked.

'You can see a ways along the road. It's straight and flat.'

'Of course,' Spock said. He must not allow himself to feel the bitterness that threatened to rear up. He must not envy young Peter his sight. He had lost so much.

'Are you all right, Uncle Spock?' Peter asked again.

Spock exhaled slowly, and nodded. 'I am – all right,' he said, although without much conviction.

'Yeah, and the other one's got bells on it,' Peter said.

'I beg your pardon, young man?' Spock asked, utterly bewildered, lifting his head.

He heard Peter's feet shuffle on the ground. The boy sat down next to him on the edge of the road, not close enough to touch him, but close enough that Spock could sense his nearness.

'Pull the other one, it's got bells on it,' Peter replied. 'Don't they – don't they say that on Vulcan, sir?'

Spock immediately thought of the ceremonial Vulcan bell frames, but it did not help explain the saying.

'They do not say that on Vulcan,' he affirmed.

'It means – aww, I guess it means I think you're kidding. I asked you if you were all right and you said yes, but I don't think you're telling the truth, not for a moment, Uncle Spock.'

'Vulcans do not lie,' Spock said.

'You can pull the other one on that, too. I know that's not true.'

Spock sighed at this young child's perception. 'You are right, it is not true. I am not _all right_. But there is little that either one of us can do to remedy the situation, so there is little point in discussing it.'

'Uncle Jim says talking can cure most anything. Grandma does too.'

A powerful and inexplicable wave of fear passed through Spock before he could combat it. Here he was, far away from Jim's home, he knew not where, just him and this young boy. He could not hear the wind catching in trees or on buildings. The world around him was quite beyond his reach.

He caught that fear and managed it with some effort.

'Talking does not cure blindness,' Spock said.

'Talking doesn't bring people back to life either,' Peter said, his voice a little lower, sounding weary. 'But – gee, Uncle Spock, it did help some. I talked a lot to grandma and I talked a lot to Uncle Jim and I talked a lot more to my big brothers when they came, and I feel better, a bit. I really do.'

'Peter – ' Spock began. He had been about to say, _My case is different, _but how could he say that to a boy of this age, a boy who had been bereaved of both parents and transported to another world? No one that Spock knew had died in the last weeks. His case was entirely different, but he could not measure his own grief against Peter's.

'What, Uncle Spock?' Peter asked.

Spock shook his head. 'I imagine you must have felt lost on arriving here on Earth,' he said quietly.

'Yeah, a bit, I guess,' Peter replied. 'I – guess you feel lost too, don't you?'

Spock was not sure how to reply. It was very far from his habit to talk about his feelings, but he also did not want to rebuff this young man who was reaching out to him at such a difficult time in his own life.

'Yes,' he said simply after a while. 'Yes, I do feel lost.'

'Do you want me to take you home?'

Spock allowed the corner of his mouth to twitch at the simplicity of Peter's solution. He stretched out his legs, flexing his sore ankle, and then stood up. He stepped back up onto the hard road surface and stood there. The darkness felt very complete.

'That would be very kind of you,' he said graciously.

Peter hesitated. 'Uh. Do you need to – '

'Just walk with me,' Spock assured him.

He touched the end of the stick to the ground, and began to walk. Peter fell in step alongside him, walking protectively on the outside of the road, nearest to the ragged edge. They walked in silence, but after a while Peter said, 'There's another house over there, far out across the fields. Looks old. It's a board house like grandma's.' He was quiet again, then said, 'That field over there's not ploughed up. There are animals on it. I think they might be cows. I haven't seen cows in real life before.'

Spock walked on and let the boy prattle, soaking up his naïve descriptions of the country through which they passed. Meanwhile, the rest of his thoughts wandered, now he did not have to focus so intently on where he was and in which direction he was travelling.

Peter's hand touched his arm. 'Sir. Uncle Spock.'

He turned distractedly towards the boy. 'What is it, Peter?'

'You're not quite straight, sir,' he said, sounding embarrassed.

'Ah,' Spock replied, and let Peter turn him back in the right direction.

He fell back into his thoughts as Peter continued to talk about the surrounding countryside. He wondered if Jim had woken up yet, if he were worried. If he were awake he would be bound to be worrying. Spock did not want to constantly be a source of worry and concern. He frowned slightly, wondering if there were any way he could persuade Jim to return to the ship, to stay away until he had – if he could – recovered his independence and skills. But – he did not want to be away from Jim. He needed him, not because of Spock's many incapabilities at this time, but because Jim created the whole that Spock had been searching for all his life. He did not want to spend his evenings alone, to wake up alone, to eat alone. He had done that for long enough. He simply wanted this intolerable situation to be gone, to have some measure of independence, to be able to restore his relationship with Jim to normal.

'Peter, are we close to the house?' he asked.

'Uh – yeah, pretty close,' the boy replied. 'Hey, I think Uncle Jim's looking for you. He's in the front yard.'

Spock caught it then, a feeling of tension and anxiety like the smell of venom in the air. He reached out to his partner's mind, trying to impart a sense of reassurance. There was a moment of confusion, and then their thoughts touched, meshed, and he felt Jim's slacken and settle closer to calm. He kept projecting wordless thoughts of reassurance as Peter started telling him how far they were from the house, and he heard then Jim's footsteps coming towards them in a light jog.

'D'you think we're in trouble, Uncle Spock?' Peter asked in a quiet voice.

Spock raised an eyebrow, momentarily inwardly amused at that thought.

'I have no doubt, Peter,' he said. 'But there is no need to concern yourself. We have done nothing wrong, and I will explain just so to your uncle.'


	12. Chapter 12

(I'm sorry, I'm not keeping up with reviews. I have a stinking cold. Life issues, injured husband. Ugh.)

'Spock, where the hell did you go?' Jim asked as soon as he reached the Vulcan and his young nephew. 'Peter, what were you thinking taking him – '

Spock interrupted immediately. 'Peter took me nowhere, Jim. I went alone. Peter came after me. I am an adult, and as such – '

Jim's concern was such that it had erupted into a fierce anger that seemed to fill the air around them. 'Spock, for God's sake, you're _blind_, you're not capable – '

Spock interrupted in a level, hard tone that would have reduced most ensigns on the _Enterprise_ to rubble.

'Jim, I am neither a child nor mentally deficient. If I wish to go for a walk alone at any time of day I shall do so, without seeking permission or advice from you or anyone else. I am not under your command here, and – '

'Listen, Spock,' Kirk cut across again, then he hesitated, and Spock could feel his self consciousness. 'Pete, go into the house,' Jim said in a voice that demanded obedience. Spock heard the boy hurry away as Jim took hold of his elbow and nudged him forward. Spock walked with him, aware that something was about to explode and quite conscious that neither of them wanted to be in proximity of the house when it happened. The ground was quite level, thankfully, for Jim was pulling him angrily, not guiding him, until they had passed through the trees and out the other side. Spock's sense of helplessness and repressed anger only increased each time he stumbled and floundered on the uneven ground and Jim caught him and kept him upright.

'Look, Mister, I don't care if we're on the ship, on Earth, on Vulcan,' Jim snapped as soon as they were through the trees. 'You can't just disappear off like that. I woke up and you were gone, you weren't in the house. You didn't even have a comm. _Anything _could have happened.'

Spock kept his voice very level to counter Jim's anger. 'Anything could not have happened. I went for a walk along a straight, flat road. I have never heard that this is a particularly dangerous area of your country.'

'That's not the _point_,' Jim almost shouted.

'_Captain_,' Spock snapped, his own voice rising now as he stepped away from Jim's hand. 'Jim, if you continue to treat me in this way I will not permit you to stay with me in San Francisco. I will not return to the _Enterprise_. Do you understand this? Do you understand that you cannot hover over me as if I were a fragile infant, make my decisions for me, shelter me from every perceived harm? It is insupportable to live in this way. I cannot, and should not be expected to, endure it.'

'Spock, you're _blind_,' Jim tried again, his voice beginning to crack now as a softer kind of emotion broke through.

'_Yes_, Jim,' Spock returned. Jim's own grief softened his anger for a moment. 'But I am still Spock. I am still everything that I was before.'

'God, Spock, this is so hard,' Jim said, his voice plaintive as he turned away.

Fury welled up in Spock then, uncontrolled, billowing out, travelling at warp speed and consuming everything in its path.

'This is hard for _you_? It is hard for _you_?' His fists were clenched. He wanted to hit or to stride away but he was paralysed by his uncertainty of where he was. His voice had risen into a sharp and rasping cry of anger. 'I have been told I will never see again. My career in ruins. My life derailed. Everything you take for granted ripped away. And this is hard for _you_?'

He did walk then, striding away, finding earth that was clumped and uneven under his feet, knowing he was likely walking straight across a newly growing crop but not caring, just wanting to be alone, to be utterly without witness to this terrible display.

Jim had no problem catching up with him. He caught him from behind, twisting him around, shaking him. Spock's feet stumbled on the ridged earth and he fell, landing with his face against rich dirt. The scent that rose around him reminded him forcibly of the hydroponics bay on the ship, setting off a chain remembrance of the corridors, the labs, the bridge, of all that he had lost. He could feel slim wisps of leaves under his hands like sparse grass and he grasped at them, ripped at them in his anger, flinging a handful of leaves, dirt, and pebbles across the ground.

'Leave me,' he growled. 'Find yourself another Edith. Find yourself a perfect woman with perfect eyes. There is no need for you to chain yourself to this useless carcass.'

Jim was down next to him on the ground, half over him, his arm coming across Spock's back and holding him so tightly that it was hard to breathe. The human shook the Vulcan, turned him over, lay over him. His breath was hot and near Spock's face. His anger and shock and grief were palpable.

'I don't _want_ Edith, dammit. I don't _want_ a perfect woman. I want _you_, Spock. _You._'

'I am never going to see again,' Spock retorted, 'and you treat me as if I were capable of nothing, as if I never will be capable.'

'No, Spock,' Jim crooned, his voice becoming quieter now, softer. A hand touched Spock's cheek, stroked dirt from his face. 'I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I know this is hardest on you. I know it's devastating. I shouldn't have said that it was hard for me.'

'It _is_ hard for you,' Spock insisted, understanding the truth of that. It would be hard for him if Jim had suddenly been struck blind. He exhaled a long breath. His head was lying back on the dirt. He would have been looking up at the sky. He could feel the sun on his face, and yet there was nothing, no sliver of light entering his useless eyes. 'It is hard for you, and that is why it would be best for us to part. For you to go back to the ship. For me to – '

And there he faltered. There again he was against the stone wall, thinking, _What can I do? Where can I go? _It was as useless as his attempt to walk away from Jim a few minutes ago. Again and again he came up against his inabilities, and failed.

'_No_,' Jim said with vehemence. 'No, Spock, I won't go. I will – ' He drew in breath, swallowed. His weight shifted and he was no long lying half over Spock but beside him instead. 'I will try to do better, Spock. That's all I can promise. To do better.'

Spock closed his eyes, feeling the uneven ground surface underneath him, pressing along his spine and the backs of his legs. The ground was cold. He recalled the whole nightmare of the past month, the arrival at Deneva, Jim's dead brother, the sting and then terrible, terrible pain of the creature's attack. Surgery, unconsciousness, waking to agony. A week of pure agony under rigid control, and then – this. The light building to an unbearable point and then darkness settling which had never gone away. It felt like drowning. He felt as if he had been sucked under water by currents and there was no escape.

'I – ' he began, but he was not sure how to finish the sentence.

'What, Spock?' Jim asked after a moment of silence.

Spock almost reached out to his mind, but he stopped himself. He could not inflict that on Jim at this moment. There was too much in there that would distress him.

'I am not sure that I can do better,' he said after a long time.

'Wait, Spock,' Jim said softly, stroking his hand against the Vulcan's face again. 'Promise me that you will wait until you've started your training. No life decisions, no assumptions that you'll never be useful again. Just wait a while. Will you promise that? You can't possibly assess your feelings and your future at this point.'

'No,' Spock said quietly, closing his eyes. 'No, I know.'

'Logic is your friend, Spock. You know that. When have you ever started on a new course in life without having to learn as you did it? You didn't step onto the bridge of the _Enterprise_ as the best first officer in the fleet, did you?'

'No,' Spock said, remembering the years of learning, training, mistakes and successes one after another. Jim was right, of course, but logic seemed very far away.

'Do you know that we're lying in the middle of one of mom's wheat fields?' Jim asked after a while.

'I suspected as much,' Spock nodded. 'I trust we have not done too much damage.'

'Not too much,' Jim assured him.

They were quiet again, and then Jim touched his lips to Spock's cheek and said, 'I'm sorry, Spock. I'm sorry for overreacting, over-protecting.'

Spock curled his fingers around Jim's and gave them a light squeeze. 'I am sorry for giving in to emotion and despair.'

He could tell that Jim didn't know what to say to that. They had spoken enough about emotion.

'Jim, would you take me home?' Spock asked.

Together they stood up and Jim spent some moments brushing dirt from their clothes and skin.

'Mom'll think we've be making love in her cornfield,' he said with half a laugh.

'If she has spoken to Peter I very much doubt she will believe that,' Spock countered.

'Well, maybe not. Now, do you want me to – '

'I _do_ need you to help me,' Spock nodded, understanding Jim's hesitancy.

Together they walked out of the field, and Spock felt that perhaps a corner had been turned in their relationship. He had felt that something had broken, that they had both been floundering since his blinding, and that this crisis might precipitate them back to something more as it used to be between them.

((O))

Later that day Spock sat in the farmhouse in the quiet afternoon, eyes closed and head resting against the soft high back of his armchair. Peter had been taken by his brothers to the local fun park for some light relief, and Jim had promised to take the strain off his mother and make dinner that evening, a real dinner prepared from fresh ingredients. Since Spock did not believe he could help he chose to sit with Winona in the sitting room. Perhaps aware that he had little to occupy him she had put music on, and they sat largely without speaking. Spock recognised Brahms, and relaxed into the depths of the composition, recalling the finger presses of that particular piece as if he had a piano in front of him. It had been a long time since he had been fortunate enough to be somewhere with a piano, and suddenly he wondered if it would be possible to hire one while he and Jim were settled in San Francisco.

He began to drift into a comfortable vision of the day stretching ahead in the apartment that Jim had already arranged, long evenings together in peace and quiet with no company but their own. Life very rarely ran to schedule on a starship, and although he would not choose these circumstances it would be pleasant to be stationary and on a fixed schedule for a while.

'Life's hard for you and Jim at the moment, isn't it?' Winona asked, cutting into his thoughts.

Spock blinked and turned toward her voice. 'It it not the easiest time,' he nodded, unwilling to express exactly how difficult things were. After the resolution of their argument in the field he felt rather easier about his relationship, but he knew that there were sure to still be difficulties to come.

'It's cut Jim up very badly losing his big brother, you know. I think it's brought back memories of losing – When we lost George, Jim's father, it was very hard for him.'

'I imagine it must have been hard for the entire family,' Spock said, although he was unwilling to delve into what must be a very emotional subject for Jim's mother.

'Yes,' she said slowly. 'Yes, of course it was. I – I – maybe I can be glad that George didn't have to live through losing his eldest son, but – '

Spock thought that was poor compensation for what had happened, but said nothing.

She was silent for a spell and the music flowed through the room. Then she said, 'Spock, I don't know if I will ever be able to express my gratitude to you for what you went through to develop and test the cure for that terrible parasite infection. I lost Sam and Aurelan but I will thank God every day that I didn't lose Peter too.'

Spock lifted an eyebrow, curious and somewhat nettled that Mrs Kirk should credit a mythical deity for what was in fact the result of extremely hard work by actual living beings.

'God was not a factor in the cure, Mrs Kirk,' he said quite seriously. 'The captain, Dr McCoy, and I, along with a large proportion of the medical and science staff, spent a good many hours researching methods which might kill the parasite infection. Finally Jim was struck with the thought that perhaps light alone might be fatal to the parasite. So, you see, it was actually your son who saved your nephew's life.'

'Thank God is just an expression,' Winona said, and Spock thought she was smiling. 'I know I should be thanking science, and humans and Vulcans. But Jim didn't tell me that he realised it was light that you needed to use?'

'The captain is typically modest,' Spock commented. 'It took, perhaps, an unscientific mind to consider an option that had not previously been considered.'

'But it was _you_ who went into that test cubicle,' she reminded him.

'Yes,' Spock said pensively. 'I had very little choice.'

He did not like to think of that moment of haste, in which his judgement had been so clouded that he had not been able to wait for the first test results. There were too many _if_s surrounding what had happened for him to be able to recall it with any comfort. He folded his hands together in his lap, thinking instead about Jim, about how difficult this time truly must be for him. Even at the best of times, even when everything was well, Jim hated to be away from the ship. He had given up much to be here on Earth with Spock.

'You will take care of him, won't you, Spock?' Winona asked quietly.

Spock almost started, struck by the novelty of anyone in recent weeks crediting him with any responsibility. It was, perhaps, not the kind of responsibility to which he was used, but for Jim's mother to be entrusting the care of her son to him touched him profoundly.

'I will endeavour to do my utmost,' he promised gravely. He stood up. 'If you will excuse me, Mrs Kirk,' he said, nodding his head to her.

'Oh, of course,' she said.

Again Spock was gratified that she did not jump up and offer help. She stayed sitting as the classical music swelled through the room, and Spock discreetly held out one hand and found his way over to the door, noticing the sounds of the floorboards creaking under his feet, the scent changing as he moved from sitting room to hall, the echoes becoming a little stronger as he passed into a space with fewer soft furnishings. All of these things built up a picture, and he was learning to see that picture more clearly every day.

He went to the kitchen and stood in the doorway for a moment, listening. Jim was humming quietly to himself. He was not moving around but seemed stationary. The noises indicated that he was chopping something. Spock wondered if he were wearing an apron, perhaps something feminine belonging to his mother. He wondered how his hands would look, one curled over the knife, the other holding whatever he was cutting – a vegetable, he thought, by the crisp sound. He wondered if Jim's hair had lightened in response to time spent under a real sun, if he were wearing jeans or something more modern, if he had a shirt that was open at the neck showing a flash of chest, or one of those very slick tops that were so in fashion that came high up the neck and had no openings. The emotion that welled in him was not as sharp edged as frustration. It was more a soft and sad regret that these simple things were lost to him. The sight of Jim's knuckles. The back of his neck. The varied colours of his human hair.

He walked into the room with care and up to the sounds of humming and cutting, and gently slipped his arms around Jim's waist from behind, resting his head lightly on Jim's shoulder in the crook of his neck. He could feel Jim sensing his quiet sadness. The human laid the knife down then turned around and cupped a hand to his face and kissed him gently. Then he put his arms around the Vulcan and just held him in silence, imparting wordless support and comfort for a grief that was not mentioned and did not need to be.

'I love you, Spock,' he said.

'T'hy'la,' Spock responded, knowing that would say it all.

He moved his hands discreetly to feel what Jim was wearing. A hand on the hip told him the fabric was denim. The top felt like cotton, and was loose.

'Retro jeans and a button up shirt,' Jim said, understanding what Spock was doing. 'The jeans are quite a dark blue, the shirt is orange with fuchsia panels. Oh, and mom's white apron over the top. My shirt sleeves are rolled up. I'm not wearing shoes or socks.'

'Thank you, Jim,' Spock said. He had a vision of Jim's bare feet in his mind that he found endearing. He would have to take care not to stand on his toes in his booted feet. 'What are you cutting?'

'Carrots at the moment. I've been putting off doing the onions. They get in my eyes so badly.'

Spock's mouth twitched in a nascent smile. 'Let me do the onions,' he said. 'They do not affect me.'

The hesitation was infinitesimal. 'Thank you, Spock,' Jim said. He moved sideways, gently nudging the Vulcan forward. 'The board is here,' he said, putting Spock's hand to it. 'Here's the knife and the onions. Two should be enough. The peels can – You know what, Spock, just put the peel aside and I'll throw it away. The chopped onion needs to go in this pan here,' he said, taking Spock's hand again and touching his fingers to the cold of metal just behind the chopping board. 'I've got some garlic that needs peeling and chopping too.'

Spock nodded, picking up the first onion and feeling its round, heavy form, and the papery skin that covered the flesh beneath. Perhaps Jim would worry about him cutting himself, but Spock did not. He was quite aware of where his hands were and the dimensions of the onion, and he carefully felt the blade of the knife to familiarise himself with its shape.

For a moment Jim stood close to him as Spock sliced the ends off the onions and began to peel off the skin. Spock did not feel that he was under scrutiny, just that Jim was close and loving and standing there because he liked to be near him, just as they did so often on the bridge when Spock did not need to be at his sensors or Jim did not need to be in the captain's chair.

Jim came a little closer and laid his hands over Spock's from behind, kissing the back of his neck. 'Thank you, Spock,' he said, making him pause for a moment in his chopping. 'You know, it's nice being at home for a while, but I can't wait until we're settled in San Francisco, together and alone. We've never had that. You can never really feel alone on the _Enterprise._ It's like having an extended family of four hundred thirty around you.'

'You are quite right,' Spock replied. He gently eased his hands out from under Jim's and continued chopping, not wanting to be distracted, but Jim was right. San Francisco would spell out a new chapter for both him and Jim, and he had to believe that it would be a positive one.


	13. Chapter 13

San Francisco

The apartment was close enough to the ocean to hear the waves and the screams of gulls. The scent of salt and sea-life were thick whenever the windows were open to the air, and other sounds drifted in too; the casual sounds of a place considered warm by its inhabitants; occasional shouting in happiness or anger, the acceleration of air and ground cars, the barking of dogs or a surge of music from a passing vehicle.

The apartment seemed to be a comfortable place, well furnished, small and all on one level, but for now to Spock all it was was yet another space that he had to get to know. He had adjusted to the cramped quarters on the ferry to Earth. He had adjusted to Winona Kirk's house and surroundings. Now he needed to learn the dimensions and contents of one bedroom, one bathroom, a spacious living area, and a kitchen to one side, plus a small storage room for coats and various sundries. It was a wearisome business. Spock was no stranger to diligent investigation, but it was usually in areas rather more fascinating than the layout and contents of a simple apartment.

The apartment was on the second floor of the building, and there was a balcony which Kirk assured him had a beautiful view of the ocean. In the evening the sun set, Jim told him, over the water in a blazing spread of pinks and golds. In the morning the waves crashed onto brown sands while joggers and dog-walkers enjoyed the peace and the sky moved from pink and gold to eggshell to brilliant blue. Spock understood all of this. He had seen it before. He wished he could see it now, no matter how illogical it was to wish.

This morning Jim was not standing at the window describing things for Spock. Spock's first day at the rehabilitation centre was today. The administration had tried to persuade him to take up residence in the building, but Spock had been deeply reluctant to do so, citing the Vulcan need of privacy as an excuse. It was true that he did not wish to be forced to share a room and all his meals with unknown humans, but the deeper truth was that he did not wish to be separated from one particular human at this time. The clinching argument was that in order to meditate Spock needed to be able to light an uncontained flame. Even though he could no longer see such a flame he could focus onto its heat and the scent of the burning incense, and meditation was vital for him at this time. Under no circumstances could uncontained flames be allowed in sleeping quarters, and so Spock gained the special privilege of boarding away from the rehabilitation centre on religious grounds.

He had heard the mutter of the centre clerk quite clearly before the communication had been fully cut. _Damn, but Vulcans are weird._

He did not care if the human staff of the facility thought that Vulcans were 'weird'. He would be staying with Jim, and that was what counted.

'You'll be okay today?' Jim fussed about him, putting down crockery onto the table where Spock sat. Spock could feel Jim's nervousness. On the same day that Spock was starting at the rehabilitation centre, Jim was presenting at Starfleet Headquarters to take up his ground job.

'I will be surrounded by individuals who are quite experienced dealing with the blind,' Spock reminded his partner. 'I cannot imagine a place better suited.'

'I guess not,' Jim said, seating himself opposite the Vulcan. 'Your coffee's here,' he said, taking Spock's hand and moving it toward the cup. 'Toast on the plate in front of you. You're sure you don't want anything else?'

'I am quite sure,' Spock nodded, catching Jim's fingers before his could move them away and stroking across the back of his hand. He felt the cuff of Jim's top. A uniform shirt with braid on the sleeve. Jim was back in command gold. The knowledge pleased him. He himself was wearing a dark and largely featureless suit which Jim had described as making him look 'hot as sin.' He would have rather been wearing his blue science uniform, though.

'We need to be gone in – oh – ten minutes,' Jim said, and Spock knew he was looking at a chronometer. 'I've ordered a cab. I'm going to try to get hold of an air car later. It'll be more convenient.'

'Of course,' Spock nodded. Jim had already told him all of this. He was repeating himself because he was nervous, but Spock was not sure if the nerves were for himself or Spock.

In ten minutes time Spock was quite ready to leave the apartment, while Jim was still fussing around looking for things he needed to take.

'Damn, the coats must be somewhere – ' he was muttering.

'In the cloakroom,' Spock suggested.

He stood waiting near the door while Jim moved around like a minor whirlwind. After a few moments the captain was putting a coat over Spock's shoulders, saying, 'It's drizzling out there and the mist's in well. You'll be cold otherwise.'

'Thank you, Jim,' Spock said patiently, pushing his arms into the coat. 'I think I hear the cab.'

'Yeah, it's out there. Well, come on,' he said, letting Spock take his arm. 'Let's get out of here.'

He guided Spock with great care down the stairs and the short path outside to the cab. Spock tried to impart a sense of calm reassurance into his lover's mind. He was certain that he himself would be fine, and that Jim would be too.

'You know what it's like meeting Fleet top brass,' Jim muttered.

'Yes, I do,' Spock said tolerantly.

When the cab drew up to the rehabilitation institution Jim helped Spock diligently from the car and up to the door. Spock could somehow _feel_ the size of the building before him. Perhaps it was the echoes he could sense, intimating a large façade. He had a fleeting memory of this place from his years at the Academy since he had walked past a number of times, but he had never scrutinised it, certainly never thought that one day he might be attending. In his memory it was a wide white façade with many windows, but he remembered little else.

'Ah, Commander Spock,' a female voice said as Jim took him in through the doors. 'We've been expecting you.'

'Obviously, since I was scheduled to attend at this time,' Spock replied in a level voice.

Jim sent him wordless reassurance. McCoy would say that he was being 'extra-Vulcan' in response to stress, and perhaps he would be right.

The footsteps that came across the floor were loud and clacking. A hard floor and perhaps high-heeled shoes, a most illogical species of footwear.

'I am Linda Alcott, Mr Spock,' the woman said. Her voice was warm and she smelt lightly of a flowery perfume. Spock judged that with the heels she was about the same height as he was. 'I've spoken to you on the comm. I'll be your personal liaison all through your time here. You'll have a number of instructors, but if you need anything you come straight back to me, okay?'

Spock nodded. 'Good morning, Ms Alcott,' he said, and she laughed lightly.

'You can call me Linda,' she replied, 'although I'll assume it's Spock for formal and Spock for casual with you, yes?'

'Quite correct,' Spock nodded.

There was a brief hesitation, then the woman said, 'Captain Kirk, I can get Mr Spock all booked in. He's in my hands now.'

'Oh, I – '

Spock could feel Jim's reluctance to leave.

'I will be quite fine, Captain,' he assured him.

Jim touched a hand to his back firmly, foregoing any kind of intimacy in front of this stranger for Spock's sake.

'I will be here to pick you up as soon as you call,' he promised.

'It's going to be a long day this first day,' Linda Alcott warned him.

'Any time you call, Spock,' Kirk assured him.

'Thank you, Jim,' Spock replied.

Then Jim was gone, and Spock was left with the human woman in an unknown space.

Immediately he felt a degree of uncertainty settle on him. Logically this woman was perfectly proficient at aiding the blind, and logically this was a safe place. Nevertheless, it disconcerted him to be without the Captain in a place he did not know while he was unable to see.

'I'm sure you're nervous, Mr Spock,' Linda Alcott began.

'I am Vulcan,' Spock countered.

'I know. We've had Vulcans through these doors before – and I'm sure you're nervous,' she replied with something that may have been a mixture of humour and sympathy.

Spock did not argue any more. He merely inclined his head in acknowledgement.

'You have a lot to learn, but I know that Vulcans are excellent learners with highly developed senses, so you have that in your favour,' Alcott continued. 'I also know that Vulcans find any weakness extremely difficult, even if they cover up their responses with logic. Am I correct?'

'Ms Alcott, it would be more appropriate to have this discussion in a private area,' Spock said, conscious that they were not alone in this lobby or whatever the invisible room was.

'Why don't you take my arm, Mr Spock? I saw when you came in that you've got that technique down well.'

'It is not the most complicated of techniques to manage,' Spock reminded her.

'You'd be surprised,' she said with grim humour. 'Come on, we'll go to a private room and I'll get all the paperwork out of the way, and then we can start you on this course. And believe me, when it's over you'll have a completely different view of your life as a visually impaired individual. You will have regained a good measure of independence, you'll have basic life skills under your belt, you'll be able to read and write again and operate adapted technology. The first thing you'll want to start using is a cane.'

((O))

Jim had little reason to feel nervous about his own first day, but he was. Perhaps the knowledge that Spock was going through his own kind of nervousness was affecting him. Perhaps it was because he was used to being at the top of the chain of command on his ship and it unsettled him to visit headquarters and be one of the lower ranking officers on duty. Either way, he felt a degree of nervousness as he entered Command Headquarters and made his way up to Admiral Williams' office.

He entered the outer office and Williams' blond secretary smiled up at him.

'Captain Kirk,' he said, standing up and extending a hand. 'The Admiral's ready for you, sir, if you want to go in.'

Kirk glanced at the door that the secretary nodded toward, took a deep breath, and entered. Admiral Williams was sitting behind her desk, a stout, dark woman who looked quite capable of taking on hordes of assassins or spies if necessary.

'Captain,' she said with a broad smile, standing and reaching out an exquisitely manicured hand. 'It's good to meet you after all this time. I've heard good things about you. Lucky you were available to take this posting.'

'Well, personal circumstances – ' Kirk began, and the woman's face clouded.

'Yes, I heard all about the Deneva incident. Bad show, wasn't it? I hear you lost a relative.'

'My brother and his wife,' Jim nodded tightly. He did not want to talk about Sam.

'And Commander Spock lost his sight,' Admiral Williams continued.

'Yes,' Kirk said, looking down briefly. He wondered how Spock were doing. Obviously he could not have been with him today, and Spock would not have wanted him to be, but he disliked being apart from him at such an important time.

'I – understand your relationship with your first is more than professional,' Williams probed gently.

Jim looked up and met her eye. He had been determined ever since this relationship began to face any criticisms of it straight on and with dignity.

'Yes, it is more than professional,' he nodded. 'But we have never let it interfere with our duty.'

'Of course not,' Williams said in a mollifying tone. 'But I understand that the primary reason you came to Earth was to be with your partner during rehabilitation training. I want to be sure you'll give full attention to the job here.'

'I will perform just as I would on the _Enterprise_,' Kirk said, not without pride. 'I will perform my duty to the fullest of my abilities.'

'Good,' Williams nodded. 'Well,' she said, her tone suddenly changing. 'Sit down, Kirk. Sit down. Let's get down to the details of this thing.' She pressed a button on her desk and called, 'Summers, bring two cups of coffee. Black?' she asked questioningly of Kirk, then at his nod repeated, 'Black,' through the intercom.

'The details were very light when the job came through subspace,' Kirk began, taking a chair and drawing it a little closer to the desk.

'Necessarily so,' she nodded. 'This kind of thing has to be kept very close to the chest. That's why we contacted you primarily instead of putting the thing out to general tender through the organisation. We need a specific person for this job, Captain. A man with long experience of various alien races, of making the best in emergency conditions, thinking on his feet.'

'And you thought I was best for the job,' Kirk nodded, then asked penetratingly, 'Why? Most starship personnel of a certain rank would fit that bill.'

Williams looked him directly in the eye. 'Because we have reason to believe that the suspects are Vulcan.'

Jim almost pushed his chair back in shock. 'Vulcan? _Vulcan?_'

'I'm sure you can understand why we reached out to you, Captain.'

'Well,' Jim began, frankly puzzled. 'You know, the _Intrepid_ has a crew composed entirely of Vulcans, and there are plenty of other Vulcans in the fleet. Why not one of – '

'After the captain of the _Intrepid _your Commander Spock is the highest ranking Vulcan in the fleet, alongside his counterpart on the _Intrepid._ We wanted someone of a decent rank, and the _Intrepid _captain would not have been available. But that wasn't our only reasoning. We picked you precisely because you are _not_ Vulcan,' Williams told him patiently. 'You won't have the same loyalties that our Vulcan officers have. Vulcans are notoriously reticent to involve themselves in anything that might suggest a strain of illogic or passion running through their people. However, you have had plenty of involvement with the Vulcans. You _are_ involved with a Vulcan and you have served with him for a long time. He is your closest advisor and confidante.'

Kirk smiled suddenly, 'Admiral, are you trying to tell me that you haven't hired me. You've hired _Spock_?'

She smiled in reply. 'Not exactly, Captain. Of course we couldn't hire Mr Spock directly at this time. He's on extended medical leave and it's not yet certain that he'll be able to return to Starfleet in the same capacity as before. But it is true, is it not, that you have a rather unique understanding of the Vulcan mind?'

Jim shifted his gaze over the various data discs lying on the desk, thinking pensively about Spock and his current situation. Was it fair to involve him in this even in an ancillary way? Did he not have enough on his plate? Or would, perhaps, the Vulcan be glad of the opportunity to be vital within Starfleet again?

'Yes, I guess I do have a unique understanding,' he nodded. 'But let me understand you, Admiral. You're not bringing Spock in on this?'

'If you wanted to keep everything from him – although from what I understand about Vulcan relationships I imagine that might be difficult – that's completely up to you, Kirk,' she told him. 'I can't requisition Commander Spock and I don't want to requisition Commander Spock. But if you believe he can be of help you have full permission to disclose details of this case to him, provided they go no further.'

'All right,' Kirk murmured. 'That's good. I will take him into my confidence, of course. As you say, it's hard not to.'

The door slid open and the young blond secretary came in carrying a tray with two coffees, and also two elaborately curled Danish pastries.

'Ah, thank you, Summers,' Williams smiled up at him as he put the tray on the desk. 'Not regulation, I know, Kirk,' she said, nodding at the tray as the secretary left the room. 'My personal health advisor would have a fit.'

'As would mine,' Jim murmured, remembering the last time he had reached for something of the sort on board ship and McCoy had reminded him tartly that he had agreed to try for a two pound loss over a six week period. If Bones had been aware of just what he had been eating back on the farm for the past few weeks he would suffered apoplexy. 'Well, what they don't know can't hurt them,' he said, picking up the closest pastry. Flakes showered from his fingers onto his clothes, and he brushed them off in embarrassment.

'There's no way to eat one of these with decorum,' Williams reassured him, showering herself with a good amount of pastry as she picked up her own. 'But now we have fuel, let's get down to it, Captain Kirk. Let's talk about these Vulcans.'


End file.
